Tomorrow Is Another Day
by Merr2
Summary: It took only twenty-four hours for life as she knew it to implode. The friends and family she grew up with could no longer be by her side, and she was forced to find her own inner strength. Love triangles, Mutant Registration, and all around chaos ensue.
1. Beginnings

_Caldecott County, Mississippi._

Rogue wasn't like most little girls. From an early age, she could see the difference between herself and the kids around her. While girls her age squealed at the sight of frogs and bugs, and had their mothers buy them frilly, pink dresses with shiny black shoes, she caught tadpoles in the puddles after a storm, and begged her mama not to throw away her torn, patchy overalls.

During the summer evenings, when mama would call to her from their big, white house on the hill, she would often be found half submerged in mud, Cody Robbins (the only other kid she approved of) by her side, just as dirty.

Wiping her freckled cheek and unknowingly smearing mud across her face, Rogue plopped to the ground and pulled her leg from the mud hole, giggling excitedly at the _slllopp _sound it made.

The mud hole was a frequent playground for the two southerners. The canopy of trees surrounding the hole covered them in dark shade, blocking off the glaring sun and keeping their mud wet and moist. Leaves from fall still littered their secret place, dead animals they would sometimes poke with sticks were hidden in the bushes. It was as if time in their special place stopped, like the elements and people kept away from this sanctuary.

In reality, their 'sanctuary' was old farmland that had been abandoned due to lack of crops. Trees and greenery had overtaken the landscape, and the small dirt road beside the field had long ago been replaced with highways and paved streets, leaving the little patch of land in absolute seclusion. It was even more convenient that it was located just down the hill of her home.

Rogue decided early on that if, for some reason, they were to lose their house, she would show mama and daddy this place, and they could all live there in the mud- happily ever after.

"Ah gotsta go, Cody. Dinner time."

The blond boy frowned and began swiping mud off of his own form. "Well, ah should prob'ly walk ya home, then."

He tried taking her hand in his, but she snatched it away and stuck her tongue out. "An' what makes ya think ah need your help? It's just over the hill-"

"Yeah, but it's dark, possum, ya never know what might be out there!" He puffed out his tiny chest and raised his head proudly. "Ah gotta come, ya might need protectin'!"

"Ah can take care of myself!" Her tiny feet scrambled up the steep hill, and she laughed when she heard Cody's heavy breathing right beside her. "You're as hard headed as a billy goat and as stubborn as a mule, Cody."

"Big kids gotsta take care of little kids, possum. It's my duty."

She rolled her eyes, deciding that it would do no good to remind Cody that he was only half a year older than she was. "Shut up. You're only doin' this cause ya know my mama made chicken and potatoes for dinner, and apple pie for dessert."

His ruddy cheeks turned pink and he glared at the laughing girl. "That ain't true! Your mama might be the best cook in Caldecott County, but ah really am just protectin' ya!"

Their bickering continued all the way up the hill, and by the time they reached the top, Rogue had her arms crossed over her chest and her little nose turned towards the sky.

"Aw, come on, possum, don't be mad! Ya know you're the best fighter this side of the woods! 'Member when ya beat the snot outta Tyler Harrison for pullin' your piggy tail?"

Her shoulders relaxed slightly, and she smirked. "Ah sho' did, which is why ah don't understand why you're always tryin' to 'protect' me!"

Wiping his filthy hands on his equally filthy shirt, Cody cleared his throat and stepped closer to his friend. "Well, cause a husband is supposed to protect his wife. At least, that's what my Pa says."

"But we ain't married," she deadpanned.

"Not yet, but we will be someday. 'Sides, if not ya, then who? Other girls are gross."

Dimpling, but trying to hide it, Rogue ducked her head. "Yeah, ah guess we kinda have to marry each other, cause we can't marry nobody else."

He grinned. "Yeah! When we're grownups we can play in the mud all we want, and not get yelled at!"

"And eat so much candy we puke!"

"And buy those new rollerblades, ya know? The ones in the General Store window?"

"Lord alive!"

A beam of light fell on the two children, and they looked guiltily up at Rogue's distraught mother.

"Darn it, gal, ah oughta tan your hide this time!"

Rogue and Cody snickered, 'cause all the kids in the county knew Rogue's mama was all talk and no spanking, and had never so much as swatted a fly. When Cody and Rogue had led the other neighborhood kids on an expedition through Rogue's immense backyard, they'd accidentally trampled her mama's lilies, and though she scolded and threatened and scolded some more, she never raised her hand, and even made all the kids cookies and lemonade after she was done lecturing them.

"You get your butt in this house right now, young lady. Ah'll have to scrub you raw to get all this off…" She scooped her daughter up into the air, and made a face at the smell.

At the mention of bath time, Cody decided to make himself scarce. "Well, ah oughta get home now…"

"Oh no ya don't." She apprehended the squirming boy into her other arm and headed towards the main level bathroom. "After ah put y'all in the tub ah'll call your mama and tell her where you are, kay hun?"

Minutes later, the two children grumbled and complained as she filled the tub with even more warm water and suds. The whining grew more persistent when the sponges came out and she rubbed them down mercilessly.

The front door slammed, and both Rogue and her mother looked toward the hallway with grins on their faces. Wrapping her daughter in a towel and telling Cody they'd be right back, mother and child rushed toward the foyer, where Nicolas stood, arms open and grin wide.

"Daddy!" Rogue was transferred from her mother's delicate arms to the burly arms of her father. "Daddy ah missed ya!"

Chuckling and burying his nose in his daughter's drenched, two-toned hair, Nick used his free arm to pull his wife close. He placed a kiss on her plump lips, love burned in his eyes.

"What's with the shape shifting, darling? You know how I like seeing my gorgeous Raven when I get home."

Rogue silently agreed with daddy. Her mama, her _real _mama, was beautiful, even more beautiful than the disguise she had to wear. As a toddler, Rogue understood that she had to have two mama's: one to show the outside world because they wouldn't understand, and her real mama, her real mama with stunning red hair and smooth skin the color of the sky.

Before she went to bed, mama would tell her stories about dragons and princesses in distress. She could become the princess, the dragon, and the shiny, white knight. Rogue didn't understand why such magic had to be hidden away, but she complied with her parent's wishes, and never even told Cody.

Raven laughed and winked at the giggling bundle in her husband's grasp. Her accent disappeared completely. "Well, _someone _came home all muddy again, and this _someone _had a friend just as muddy as she was. I called Martha and explained what happen, and told her that Cody was staying the night…_again._"

"You know," Fury said, tickling Rogue's underarms, "I'm beginning to think that boy gets muddy just to have an excuse to bathe with my little girl."

Mama and daddy laughed like that was the funniest thing in the world, but Rogue only frowned, not getting it. Why _wouldn't _Cody like bathing with her? New worlds could be created within the bubbles of the basin, and Cody was her best friend in the whole world, she liked taking baths with him, too. Just last week, Cody's mom had made them wash for an hour in the tub, and they'd made up a whole new game called slippery soap. Whoever held the soap for the longest got the other person's dessert that night.

"Speaking of Cody…" Mama took her back and blew Nick another kiss. "Ah better get back in there and dry that poor boy off!"

Nick chuckled softly and shook his head at his wife's false accent, and went upstairs to shower and change into his home clothes.

Just as Raven finished drying off the two friends, the doorbell rang and she frowned, wiping her hands on her apron. "Ah wonder who that could be?"

She told Rogue and Cody to stay in the bathroom, her heels click-clacked against the shiny, wooden floors.

"Oh, Bill! What brings you here?"

Bill smiled, blue eyes twinkling, and placed a chaste kiss on Raven's smooth cheek. "Martha wanted me to stop by and bring y'all Cody's pajamas and suit. We figured y'all would be takin' him to church tomorrow."

"Goodness, ah forgot all about the poor thing's clothes…you tell Martha ah said thanks. My old brain is goin' to mush on me."

He snorted, his blond curls bounced as he laughed. "You hush up, Raven Fury. You're just as pretty and young as ya were seven years ago, when you and Nick first moved down here!"

She accepted the compliment graciously, knowing that Bill Robbins was as innocent as a schoolboy in some ways, and despite being very handsome indeed, she knew that he was absolutely devoted to Martha, and would never even think about flirting. He was truly a nice, naïve man with no ulterior motives. Raven sometimes marveled at how open and trusting the people in the town were.

"Ah'll go get Cody dressed. Thanks again for bringin' these up, Bill."

"Don't mention it, ya tell that boy ah said to be good." Giving her one last kiss on the cheek, Bill turned from the door and went down the steps of the wraparound porch. She waited until his red truck revved to life before she closed the heavy door.

After getting her hair combed and braided (which she absolutely detested) and her nightdress slipped on, Rogue and Cody were placed in their seats for dinner. Much to her embarrassment, Rogue had always been small for her age and thus needed a booster seat to see over the table. Cody never laughed at her or made jokes, in fact, one time he told her to pretend that she was a queen, and that the booster seat was her throne.

He wasn't her best friend for nothing.

The two kids gulped down their chicken and potatoes, and plugged their noses so they could eat their spinach quickly, eager to finish dinner and move on to dessert.

"Y'all slow down," Raven reprimanded as she piled seconds onto Nick's plate, "that apple pie ain't goin' anywhere, and ah don't want ya gettin' sick."

"Too late, we're already done!"

Nick laughed heartily at his daughter's antics.

"Don't ya sass me, young lady." But there was a smile on her mama's face, and she went through the swinging door to the house's massive kitchen.

She came back to the dining room with two plates in one hand, and two glasses of milk in the other hand. Rogue and Cody's eyes widened.

"Careful honey," her dad joked, "I see some drool at the corner of your mouth."

"Daddy!"

"Leave these kids alone." She set a plate and glass in front of each of them. "They can't help it if they recognize good cookin'."

That night, after Rogue was tucked in and kissed on the forehead by both mother and father, and Cody was placed comfortably in a sleeping bag next to Rogue's four poster bed, the two friends groggily discussed their plans for after church the next day. Would they play in the mud again? Probably not, since mama had seemed so frustrated when they came home filthy. Mud wrestling would definitely have to wait until next week. What about swimming in the pond? No, it rained the day before yesterday, and everything would still be gross.

They fell asleep before a decision was reached.

...

Rogue hated Sundays, not because she was a bad kid, or didn't like listening to God, it was just that everything was so _boring. _The preacher, with his sweaty, trembling cheeks; droning on and on about something none of the kids there understood, and the pathetic church choir- made up of a bunch of old ninnies trying desperately to wheeze out a note. And to make matters worse, the air conditioning hadn't worked since before Rogue had been born, and the stifling heat of the brick building made everything nigh unbearable.

The preacher, the choir, the heat…perhaps Rogue could stand all of that, if it wasn't for the dang _dress. _If there was anything Rogue's young heart hated with a passion, it was getting stripped of her tank top, overalls, and bare feet, and getting stuffed into stupid flowery dresses and frilly socks and shiny black shoes. She would cry, scream, and throw a tantrum when mama woke her up every Sunday morning to comb through the tangled mass of curls that was Rogue's hair, and scream even louder when bows were tied into her curls.

Pouting still, Rogue swung her tiny legs back and forth beneath the wooden pew. She looked up at mama, hoping she'd see her misery and have mercy on her poor soul.

As usual, mama kept her attention on the preacher, a paper fan in her hand.

Sometimes, Rogue would sit and watch her mama, mesmerized by her pretty stature and the graceful way in which she did things. Her hair was always neat and smooth and pulled back into intricate chignons. Her church dresses always fit well and looked beautiful, like she'd walked off the cover of a magazine. The wrist-length gloves she wore to church never had smudges, and the different pairs of heels she wore were always clean and polished, no matter what.

Everyone always said her mama was the prettiest, and Rogue couldn't help but swell with pride.

When she was done watching mama, she would watch daddy. He always looked just as uncomfortable as she in his suit and neck tie. Sometimes he would fall asleep, but mama would always catch him and elbow him hard in the ribs.

When daddy didn't think she was listening, he would grumble to mama and ask her why they went to church when neither of them believed in God, and she would reply they did it to 'blend in with the community'. Rogue never understood that.

To ease their joint misery, daddy would often peek behind mama and make silly faces at his daughter, causing her to laugh uncontrollably into her hands. They were sure mama heard her giggles, but she would always just smile lovingly and continue listening to the sermon.

She and Cody could never get out of church fast enough. They would kiss their mama's cheeks and sprint out the door, the warnings of their mothers in their ears: 'If you get just _one _speck of dirt on those church clothes, ah swear ah'll…'

They never did anything, though, and Rogue and Cody always came home dirty. Eventually, their mothers packed extra clothes in their purses and forced the kids to change before they could play for the day. It meant more time in the church changing, but they didn't get scolded as much.

...

As it is wont to do in the south, time passed slowly and leisurely for the children. They played, they ate, they slept, they repeated. For years nothing changed. It was as if the south was untouched, like time and money and corruption couldn't soil it.

But nothing could stay the same forever, and eventually, things _did _change. The news started being filled with more and more images of mutants. Things like the Registration Act, which had never been discussed before, became household topic. Some sympathized with mutants, most did not.

But, despite the chaos in the world around her, Rogue remained a happy child, wrapped in the cocoon of her parent's love. She'd grown up in wonderful simplicity, in a small town where nothing bad ever happened. Of course, as she grew older, she had some puzzling questions that her parents always avoided answering: Why did daddy have to go on trips so often? Why didn't she know her grandparents? Were they dead? Why weren't there pictures of them? Why would mama always change the subject when asked about her past- where she came from, when she was born, what college she went to?

But these thoughts only seldom bothered the belle, and her parents knew her well. They bought her whatever she wanted, and at the sight of a new dress or an expensive cell phone she forgot all about her woes.

There were other, more significant changes that occurred. One day, a few months after her twelfth birthday, Rogue decided that maybe she didn't like bugs as much as she used to. A couple months later, she decided that playing in mud and dirt was too much of a hassle. When she turned thirteen and got her period, mama taught her how to shave and she decided she liked the way she looked in dresses and skirts.

Cody, who had been playing baseball for a while, didn't mind the change so much. He was actually proud to see Rogue sitting on the bleachers, her dress and long hair blowing in the hot breeze, her arms waving in the air, cheering him on. And at school, his friends always told him how lucky he was that the 'cutest girl in school' was his best friend.

For a year his friends pressured him, his parents pressured him, _Rogue's _parents pressured him, and finally, when they entered the ninth grade Cody, red-faced and stammering, held a bouquet of flowers in his shaking hand and asked her to be his girl.

She didn't answer him for a long time, and when he finally made eye contact with her, he saw that she was smiling.

"Well it took ya long enough, Cody Robbins. Ah was beginnin' to think ah'd have to wait forever!" And with that, she accepted the flowers and kissed him on the lips.

He'd thought his heart would explode.

After she kissed Cody, she knew they were meant to be. That she would one day marry Cody and they'd have babies and live happily ever after. Of course, mama always told Rogue there were other options besides being a wife and mother, but Rogue was stubborn, and a southern girl through and through. Where she was from, women didn't have careers of their own. The way her town thought was sexist and old-fashioned, but it was what Rogue grew up with; what she _wanted_.

...

During winter, when the air chilled and coats were needed, and she had to wear tights beneath her dresses and jeans with boots, Cody kissed her more passionately than he'd ever kissed her before. His tongue slipped between her lips, and instead of being grossed out, it made her stomach get all warm. She felt his hand go underneath her coat and rest on her developing breast.

Pulling only an inch or so away, Cody looked down at her and stared deep into her eyes. "Is this okay, possum? Do ya want me to stop?"

Blushing, and hoping she wasn't some kind of sexual freak, she shook her head and they continued kissing, Cody's inexperienced hand molding and caressing her chest.

Mama knew something was up as soon as Rogue stepped through the door. She took one look at her daughter's flushed cheeks and wild eyes, and told her to sit while she made some hot chocolate.

Raven placed a cup in front of herself and Rogue, her yellow eyes seemed to burn through Rogue's skull. "We can do this two ways: the hard way, or the easy way. So are you going to tell me what happened or do I have to use other methods?"

Rogue, who was closer to her mother than anyone else, had no problem telling her what happened: how Cody had put his tongue in her mouth and how she'd put hers in his and kind of liked it, and how Cody had touched her breasts and made her stomach feel funny.

She decided to leave out the part about them falling to the ground in a tangled heap and making out for an hour.

"My baby…" Raven rested her blue hand on Rogue's pale one. "My baby is all grown up." And then she proceeded to burst into tears.

...

On the night of Rogue's fifteenth birthday, she and Cody ate cake and exchanged gifts with her parents, and then snuck into his folks' bar and grabbed a half bottle of warm vodka and a few beers that had been in the fridge.

When they were sure no one was awake, they lay atop Cody's roof and got drunk watching the stars. Winter was in full swing, so they brought coats and blankets to wrap themselves up in. It was hard making out through so many layers, but they were drunk and determined, and soon, they grew warm enough to not need so many layers, just the blankets and their clothes.

After an hour, Rogue could tell something was different. Her head ached, but she blamed it on the alcohol.

Cody asked her blushingly if she could touch 'it', and she wrapped her hand around his manhood, fumbling in her inexperience. He came not too long afterward, and it was a scary yet thrilling experience. He kissed her some more, left purplish marks on her neck, and then asked her if _he _could touch her. She said she didn't know, he said he understood, and kissed her some more. She burned, she ached for something but she had no idea what she was aching for. She thought about telling Cody she'd changed her mind.

They'd been dating for a year; they'd known each other for their whole lives. Would it be so wrong to just let him touch her…_there_?

But before she could speak, the sun broke the horizon and she knew she needed to sneak into her bedroom before her parents woke up. He said he'd clean up the mess, and asked her if she was too drunk to make it home. She told him not to worry, but he did anyway.

He kissed her goodbye, and with utter sincerity in his sapphire eyes, told her he loved her. With tears in her eyes and a grin on her lips, she told him she loved him, too. They kissed once more, then she went home and climbed through her window: drunk, happy, but thoroughly unsatisfied. She cursed her shyness. Even though she strongly believed in saving herself for marriage, she _was _a southern girl through and through after all, the bible never said anything about hands…and maybe even lips- She went red with shame at the direction of her thoughts, because surely, most _normal _girls didn't think that way. Was she deformed? Was she some kind of nymphomaniac?

She slipped into restless sleep that night; the ache inside of her didn't ease when she woke up the next morning.

...

She'd been texting Cody one night in spring when she heard shouting coming from her parents' room. She stopped in the middle of the hallway, more than startled. Never had she heard her parents argue before. It had to be something serious, and it frightened her.

She crouched by the door and pressed her ear against the wood. She only caught bits and pieces of the conversation, but what she heard distressed her so much she had to put her hand over her mouth to keep herself from crying out.

"_You knew this couldn't last, Raven! It was only a matter of time before he found us! This life…it was only temporary."_

"_What are we going to tell Rogue? That she has to leave her friends and all she knows because her parents fucked up and made a deal with a terrorist?"_

She heard her father weep. _"Rogue…she's in danger, too, isn't she? What have we done?"_

There was a rustle of clothing, and she assumed her parents were embracing.

Her heart thudded harshly in her chest. None of it made any sense to her. Terrorists? Danger? What could they be talking about? Besides her mother's ability to change forms, her parents were the most normal people she knew. And now they were talking about leaving? What would she tell Cody?…Cody! What would he think when he heard all of this?

She dialed his number by heart and nibbled her lip until he picked up on the third ring.

"Possum? Why'd you stop textin' me? Ah-"

"Cody, ya have to come over here now."

"Rogue what's wrong? Have you been cryin'?"

"Just get over here," she snapped. "Park down the hill, sneak into my room."

"Ah'll be there in five minutes. Ah love ya, Rogue."

Her lip trembled and tears slid down her cheeks. "Ah love ya too, Cody."

...

Doing as she said, Cody parked his truck at the bottom of the hill, and he sprinted toward the house and climbed through Rogue's window.

"Possum?"

She appeared out of the darkness and threw herself in his arms, sobbing harshly.

"Cody it's awful! Mama and daddy are in some kinda trouble, we have to leave!"

His arms tightened around her, his mouth fell open. "What kinda trouble? Money trouble? Ya know my parents would be more than happy to-"

"No," she shook her head and wiped her eyes. "They said somethin' about bein' in danger, about makin' a deal with a bad man…" She shivered. This couldn't be happening, not to _her _family. They were normal, they were wealthy, and they were good people who loved each other! What kind of trouble could her parents possibly have gotten into? Why did they have to leave?

They didn't speak for a while, just held each other. "Ah won't let them," he said suddenly. "Ah won't let them take ya away from me."

She looked up at him, her green eyes hopeless. "What will we do then? They're my _parents, _Cody. If they wanna leave there's nothin' ah can do to stop them!"

"Run away with me." He gripped her arms and stared into her eyes. "Run away with me, Rogue. Ah have money saved up in my college fund, and your parents always put money in your bank account! Ah'll get a job, ah'll work twelve hours a day if ah have to!"

She ran her hands through his short, blond hair, and over his broad shoulders. He'd grown so much bigger than her over the years, when he held her like this, she felt so delicate; so feminine.

"Give me ten minutes to pack my things."

A grin spread across his face and he jumped into the air. "Yeeehaww!" He dipped her low to the ground and smothered her with kisses.

"Cody," she giggled breathlessly, "be quiet, they'll hear ya!"

He smirked bashfully and went to her closet, helping her retrieve the large suitcase from the top shelf. She shoved all the dresses, skirts, blouses, shorts, jeans, and shoes she could fit into the suitcase, and grabbed her makeup off the vanity and put that in as well.

"There," she said when he lifted her suitcase and went purple from the effort, "Ah'm ready."

They hopped out the window and landed on the soft grass below, and ran to Cody's truck with their hands still intertwined. He threw her bag into the bed of the truck and hopped in the driver's seat while she took the passenger.

"We have to stop by my place so ah can get some stuff, then we're on our way!"

She hooked her arms around him and kissed him heatedly as he drove. She couldn't help but be excited about this crazy, romantic thing! Her heart throbbed with the thought of leaving her beloved parents behind, but they'd understand eventually. And someday, when things cooled down, they could be reunited.

"Ah'll be right back." Cody ran up the steps of his house, leaving the screen door open behind him.

After sending a message to her mother's phone saying that she and Cody had gone out for dinner and a movie, and that she'd be home by midnight, the belle laid back to daydream. Visions of a romantic road trip filled her mind, and she could imagine their wedding day- maybe in Vegas, with him in a cheap, rental suit, and she in a second-hand white dress. It wouldn't matter how shabby they'd look or how badly the venue lacked in elegance, they would be in love, and that's all that mattered. She sighed…a little house on the corner, a brunette boy with blue eyes, a blond girl with green eyes, and maybe even another baby for good measure.

A sound in the trunk snapped her out of her reprieve, and Cody appeared beside her with a grin. "Ah gotta full tank, we're ready to go."

They pulled out of his driveway and drove until they hit the highway. Once there, Cody pulled over to the side of the road and pointed to the signs. "Where we goin', possum? Alabama? Louisiana? Arkansas? Tennessee?"

She bit her lip and tried not to squeal. "Can ya believe we've never left Mississippi?"

He chuckled. "We sure have a lot of traveling to do." His blue eyes seemed to melt, and he took her hand in his. "It's up to ya, possum. As long as we're together, ah don't care where the hell we go."

"Well in that case-" She kissed him on the cheek. "-let's get out of the south. Somewhere excitin' and far away, like California, or Arizona, or New York!"

He pursed his lips and tapped the steering wheel in thought. "New York, huh? Ah got a cousin who lives up there, he'd let us stay at his place 'til ah get a job."

She laughed and hugged him tightly. He revved the engine to life, and they began their journey north.

_Westchester, New York._

Remy yawned sleepily, and silently wished it was possible to die of sheer boredom. He knew it'd be a bad idea to accompany Tiffany on one of her many shopping sprees, but she'd promised him they could stop by Victoria's Secret for some 'special' outfits, and so the Cajun had conceded.

Lingerie, no matter how see through and unique, was not worth _three hours_ at the mall. He was hungry, and still a tad bit hung over from the night before, and wanted nothing more than to crawl into his bed and sleep, or climb into _her _bed and _not _sleep. Hell, he'd even join one of Logan's voluntary DR sessions if it meant getting to leave this place. Anything was better than lugging around twenty pounds worth of shopping bags and listening to Tiffany's constant chatter.

"…and I was like: oh, so just because I'm blond you thought I was dumb? Well give me Mr. Frumpkins back and we'll take our business elsewhere…"

Good lord, what was she _talking _about?

They reached the entrance of yet another perfume shop, and Remy panicked. He didn't think his poor nose would ever be able to smell correctly as it was, he wasn't going to put it through even more abuse! He had quite the perfect nose, at least, that's what the ladies told him.

"I'm gonna take a smoke break, _d'accord_?" He dumped all of her bags on the ground beside her, and gave her a peck on the cheek and a pat on the butt.

"What? You said you quit smoking months ago!"

He ignored his distraught girlfriend, and ducked into the sea of people. Sighing with relief, Remy maneuvered expertly between strollers, couples, and the occasional gaggle of girls that sent him winks and smiles.

He barely made it outside before lighting up a cigarette. He pulled the nicotine deep into his lungs, and closed his eyes when he blew it out. No one- not Stormy, or Jean, or Tiffany, or even Tante, could convince him of quitting. He'd tried it once, and it'd been a bad week for everyone. Dating someone like Tiffany required a 'sanity stick' every so often- every so often being a pack a day. If anything, he'd slowed down! A year ago, he was up to two packs a day, caused by stress from the Thieves Guild, stress and pressure from his father, and Belladonna- A soft vibration saved him from having to go through _that _thought process, and he answered his cell more than distracted.

"'Lo?"

"Remy? It's Joseph."

Gambit rolled his eyes. He hated it when people started a phone conversation with a question, and he disliked Joseph anyway, making the situation all the more awkward.

"What y' want? I'm busy." That was a lie, he'd been hoping all day for a situation such as this; when the X-men would need him and he'd be 'forced' to leave Tiffany, but Joseph didn't need to know that, and so Remy will make this as difficult for him as possible.

"There's been a call for help from one of Logan's old friends. Says someone's after him and his family, they already got to the daughter. The Professor doesn't know what to expect, so he's asking all of us to suit up and head down to Mississippi."

Mississippi, huh? That was pretty close to home…but then again, how long had it been since he'd gotten some clean, southern air?

"I'll be dere in fifteen." He slammed his phone shut and shoved it deep in his pocket. He'd been thinking of New Orleans and Belladonna and all he'd left behind, and now they had a mission down south. His Tante had made him superstitious as a child, and as he thought about the coincidence, a bad feeling filled his stomach.

He sighed, but got on his bike anyway. He was being foolish, and besides, he needed some time away from Yankees, northern food, and Tiffany…Tiffany was still in the mall. Shit. Well, it couldn't be helped, he had a mission to accomplish and she could call a cab to get home. He didn't think they'd be able to carry all those shopping bags on his bike anyway.

He couldn't help but smirk as he pulled out of the parking lot.

...

He donned his uniform and trench coat in record time; making it to the War Room just as Scott began his long, drawn out list of mission objectives.

Sometimes he wondered whose stick was shoved further up their ass: Scott's, or Joseph's?

They boarded the Blackbird, and Remy turned his phone off to avoid the nasty calls and messages he knew Tiffany was sending him. She was well aware of the X-men and his duties, in fact, she thought him running around in leather and beating up bad guys was sexy, but she would still not be pleased.

He'd take her out to dinner or something later and buy (steal) her something nice and she'd get over it.

He chose a seat next to the buxom Emma Frost, and she shot him a warning glare before turning back to her magazine. She pretended to dislike him; loathe him even, but only because he'd managed to seduce her in less than twenty minutes at the Christmas party the year before, and her ego still hadn't recovered.

"Y' look ravagin' as usual, Emma. Did y' do somethin' with y' hair?"

She shifted her position so she faced more toward the window. "Leave me alone, Gambit. Honestly, can't you ever let me be? Or will you keep gloating forever?"

Harsh words, but he still managed to convince her to join him in the back for some heated kissing and feeling up.

_Northern Mississippi._

They only drove five hours the first night. They stopped at a gas station just as dawn broke, and ate their fill before passing out in each other's arms in the truck. They didn't wake up until noon the next day, and Rogue scolded herself for oversleeping like that. Mama and daddy were probably already searching for her, and if they'd traveled through the day…well, they might find where they were and catch up.

Rogue pulled a fresh dress, toiletries, make up, and a toothbrush from her suitcase. She freshened up using the leaky sink in the gas station, and felt much better after she did. Cody cleaned up too; they grabbed breakfast, and then continued down the never-ending highway.

The headaches began plaguing her again, and she was forced to rest her head against the window. Cody worried and asked her if she needed anything, she was in too much pain to respond. He did all he could do while driving, like passing her Tylenol and bottled water, and keeping the volume turned all the way down, even though she knew he loved listening to music while driving.

When they went through a McDonalds and ordered food, her headache dissipated and she could finally see straight.

They finished their meal and let the music blare loudly, singing and laughing and it was like a good, old fashioned road trip. They ran out of steam eventually, and sat in silence for a while, the music being the only sound in the truck.

He turned the volume down, and cleared his throat. "Do ya think ya should give your mama a call? Let her know you're okay?"

She looked down at her phone, which she'd plugged into the car charger earlier that day, and swallowed. "Ah don't know, Cody, it just feels too soon. Ah'm not sure if ah could say 'no' if she started beggin' me to come back."

He nodded in understanding, and wiped away the tear that slid down her cheek.

"Cody-"

They didn't even have time to scream before the truck toppled over. She looked to her right side in a daze and saw the door sparking as it skidded across the concrete pavement. She registered Cody's desperate cries and the screeching of metal. Blood obscured her vision and her senses began to fade away. She couldn't feel her wounds, though she knew she must have had many. She could no longer hear Cody, it was as if cotton had been shoved in her ears.

The truck stopped before she lost consciousness, and she saw a man through the windshield. He smirked, revealing fang-like teeth.

Using only brute strength, he kicked the side of the vehicle, causing it to turn right side up on all four wheels.

He came to her side of the car, and she was able to see him more clearly. His hair was blond and curly; his eyes were brown, but lifeless. Never had she seen eyes like his- so empty and cruel.

He reached his arm through the shattered window and ripped away the seatbelt from across her body. He then grabbed her by the arm and yanked her from the truck. She cried out.

If her arm hadn't already been harmed, he seemed willing to break it for her.

He held her up until she was at his eye level. "You've given ole' Sabretooth a lot of trouble, frail." His thumbnail grazed her cheek; she felt the sting of it, then the blood dripping down the side of her face. "But I have you now, beautiful, and you're gonna make me a _very _rich man."

* * *

As you've probably discerned, this chapter was more about introductions and background rather than action or substance. I tired my hardest to keep this chapter overly-light and fluffy, and to capture the mood of the south: the slow, unchanging ways and even some of the beliefs- aka Rogue's religious beliefs and her ultimate goal of becoming a wife and mother.

I'm sure Raven and Nick were quite different than what you were used to, but this life is not what it seems and Rogue will soon figure that out for herself.

Next chapter, things will go topsy-turvy and we'll begin to see Rogue shaping into the X-men: Evolution Rogue we all know and love. This was just a pre-story of sorts; a fluffy tidbit to show just how different Rogue's life will become.

Hmmm, I'm trying to think if there's anything else...Oh, yes! Updates- Originally, I wasn't going to start posting chapters for this until I finished brittle bones, but I wanted to see if any of the fans from the original TIAD were still interested, and maybe even some knew readers were as well, so don't expect updates to happen very often at first. However, if I see lots of reviews in my inbox, I might just make speedy updates possible...

Same story-concept still applies to this version, only I feel that I've matured (somewhat) as an author and I finally feel that I can do this fic justice (though I'm STILL not satisfied with this chapter, grrr!)

A loud and loving shoutout to **Laceylou76**, who greatly supported the first version of this and is now my wonderful beta for TIAD. Please enjoy.

Lovingly,  
Merr2.

Review, please. :]


	2. Confusion

_Caldecott County, Mississippi._

The Blackbird landed in the square patch of prairie near the house. However, the splintered, smashed porch and the collapsed bramble of the foundation couldn't be considered a home anymore. Water leaked from the twisted plumbing and the cloth of the curtains swung lifelessly to and fro from the empty window frames.

Remy let out a low whistle and kicked a piece of crushed rubble from his path. "Guess we can go home now. No body coulda survived _dis._"

Kitty let out a startled gasp and Wolverine glared at the taller man. "Shut your trap, Gumbo."

The feral man squatted next to a gnarled pipe and sniffed the air around it. After a few minutes of inspection, Wolverine's face turned hard and he stood. "Storm, contact Chuck and let him know that Magneto was _definitely_ here. I don't sense any life, but I'm sure Frost could do a scan."

Both women did what they were asked: Storm pressed the patch on her chest and Emma put her finger against her temple.

Joseph, at the mention of his estranged father, went pale and tried to smile at Kitty's comforting gaze. He was ashamed; though it wasn't his fault. He wished more than anything, not for the first time, that he hadn't been borne from the cruel terrorist.

"Your nose proved correct once again," Emma said coolly, relaxing her position. "There is no one in that wreckage. _Living _anyway."

"What now?" Bobby pressed. "I was supposed to rescue the damsel in distress and get major brownie points!"

Kitty rolled her eyes and Remy sniggered. "Yeah _right, _Iceboy. No _femme _could look through Remy to see y', it jus' isn't possible."

Bobby went red. "That's Ice_man,_ and you may think you're all that and a bag of chips, but you're not!"

"Woah, _great _comeback, Frosty." Jamie and Remy high-fived.

"You do realize you're arguing with a sixteen year old," Storm pointed out; exasperated. "Grow up."

The Cajun's smirk only widened and he winked at the weather witch. "I can grow _and _get up, Stormy. Care t' see?"

"Enough," Wolverine snapped. "Contact the others and see if they've found anything." He turned and walked away with worry etched in his features.

He knew Nick Fury, had for years, the man wasn't _this _easy to kill.

At least, that was what Logan liked to believe.

_Northern Mississippi._

He held her up by the front of her dress until she was at his eye level. "You've given ole' Sabretooth a lot of trouble, frail."

His thumbnail grazed her cheek; she felt the sting of it, then the blood dripping down the side of her face.

"But I have you now, beautiful, and you're gonna make me a _very _rich man."

A ball of hysteria and fear formed in the belle's throat, making it so she couldn't breathe. She fought his grasp and when that didn't work she screamed; long and loud.

He only laughed.

"That's right, doll. Scream for me." He laughed and shook her. Her cries and pleas for help grew more insistent and desperate.

Seemingly satisfied with her tears and wails, Sabretooth threw the girl over his massive shoulder and turned to leave.

"I'll ask you to stop there."

Magneto appeared before the man; cape flowing and helmet gleaming against the sun.

"And why would I wanna do a thing like that?" He continued on his way, but found himself wrapped in the metal from the rail; the girl was no longer in his grasp.

"Is _that _a suitable answer?" Magneto turned from the metal sphere and rested his gaze on his prize. She sat sprawled on the pavement; her peach dress torn and her curls a mess.

Her watering eyes couldn't seem to look away from the blood and metal that had been, just a few seconds ago, her doom.

She looked up to the sky, hearing the engines of an aircraft, and she heard the hovering man above her curse.

"It is time for us to depart, young one." More metal from the rails shifted and warped, forming into a saucer that Rogue found herself atop of.

It zoomed into the air next to the man, and Rogue cried out: holding on for dear life.

"Stop right there!" A beam of red struck the man, and Rogue plummeted to the ground.

Before she hit what she assumed was her sure death, a feeling of warmth and tingles wrapped around her and deposited her safely on the ground.

A girl with hair the color of flame and striking beauty ran to her side, and offered Rogue her hand. "Hurry, we have to get out of here!"

The girl's companion continued releasing the beams from his eyes, and Magneto; now recovered, threw up a shield impatiently.

"You damn X-men-"

Just then the plane landed, and Rogue scrambled away from the red head and ran over to the ruined vehicle.

"Cody?" She reached in and shook her unresponsive boyfriend. "Cody wake up! Wake up!"

Before she could completely lose herself in tears, Cody's eyes cracked open and he groaned.

"Cody!" She opened his door and began working on his safety belt. "Thank god…" She thought she'd lost him for good.

He leant on her heavily once he was free of the truck and brushed dust and pebbles from his shirt. "What the hell happened?"

The belle shook her head, just as confused as he. "Ah have no idea." More explosions and yells were added to the already-deafening fight, and Rogue clung to Cody desperately.

Cody's eyes widened. "Am Ah _dreamin'_?" He looked at the man in the sky, to the black aircraft on the ground, to the brightly dressed people battling in the middle of the highway.

Rogue led him away impatiently. "All Ah know is that they're a bunch of _freaks_. We have to get out of here and find help!"

He gasped at the increased pace, but made no objections. "Are you okay, possum? You're not hurt are ya?"

"Ah'm fine."

She hopped over the median and held his arm steadily while he did the same. They made it to the side of the road when the sound of tearing steel and snapping bone caused Rogue to spin around.

Her original captor stood free of his temporary prison. His arms were shredded down to the muscle and blood fell from his form in torrents.

Rogue knew he should have been down for the count; more likely dead, but as soon as his gaze locked on her he was running towards them at a startling speed and Rogue could only stand there- frozen in terror.

As if in slow motion, she felt Cody push her toward the trees and scream for her to run. She watched from her place in the mud and grass as the man released an animalistic roar and used his sharp nails to slice Cody's throat open. Blood spurted from the fatal wound and splattered across the pavement.

Sabretooth threw the boy away carelessly and for an instant; one last time, Rogue's eyes met Cody's eyes. His body slammed into the ground and he did not move.

"I thought I smelled something rotten."

Sabretooth only glanced at Wolverine before snorting and grabbing Rogue's arm. "I don't got time for you this time, runt."

_Snikt. _"Well I'm not giving you a choice." Wolverine propelled his body at Sabretooth and the man let out a strangled cry as he was knocked to the ground.

Rogue used the distraction and scrambled to her feet. She ran to her fallen lover with knots in her stomach and fell on her knees beside him.

Her hands fluttered uselessly against his throat. There was so much blood. It soaked his shirt and the ground around him. Her hands and wrists, along with her dress, were soon covered in his life essence.

"Oh God, oh please-" She was sobbing and she couldn't help it. She knew she should be trying harder to staunch the bleeding. She knew that crying was making her headache worse and wouldn't help save his life. But she couldn't help it. She cried.

The raging anguish in her head traveled down her neck and went out of her fingertips.

Cody's skin melded to hers and though his lips didn't move, she could hear his assurances and support clear as day.

She felt his pain and his love and his fear. He didn't want to die, but if she was safe; if she was unharmed- then it was all worth it.

His voice grew and grew in her mind. Images and memories that didn't belong to her flashed across her vision. He ached to kiss her one last time. He wanted desperately to feel the warm softness that was her mouth because everything around him was steadily becoming colder and more distant.

He envisioned their childhood: their first kiss, the way her curls felt when she finished brushing her hair, what it was like staring into her emerald eyes under the moonlight.

And then the flow of Cody's aura into her aura ceased. She felt his death like it was her own.

…

Storm's blue eyes went a milky white and fog descended upon them. Remy turned his attention from the enraged Magneto, who was steadily retreating; to the girl.

He watched as she wept and collapsed onto the dead boy's chest. The sight of her clinging to his bloody torso seared itself in his vision, and he was reminded of another girl far away, clinging to another dead boy in a white dress.

He ran to the fallen belle to stop himself from thinking of the past.

"_Chère_?" He approached her slowly, almost afraid that she would flee if he advanced any more quickly.

He crouched next to her and leant forward. "I'm not gonna hurt y', _d'accord_?" If she heard him she wasn't willing to give a response, and he rested his partially gloved hand on the small of her back. He could feel the fabric of her dress; it whispered like silk against his flesh.

She lifted her head from the blonde's chest and stared him down with her searching eyes. He was taken aback; their color melted between emerald and sapphire so fluidly that he was forced to take a second and third look.

The tears stopped spilling down her rubicund cheeks; her lips parted alluringly and she spoke with the utmost gravity: "Ah don't know who ya are, but take care of my gal. Don't let her cry for me."

Gambit's vision flickered over to the deceased blonde in her arms and he nodded. "Don' worry about nothin', _homme_. Jus' rest."

Remy had no idea how the boy's thoughts projected themselves into her brain, and he thought about _Tante _Mattie's old voodoo tales. He hadn't believed them when he'd been a child, but now he wasn't so sure. He had no intention of watching over this girl, but she (he?) seemed satisfied with his answer, and her eyes went back to green before she fell into his embrace.

Thoroughly spooked, Remy lifted the belle with ease. She looked like an angel in slumber, and he couldn't help but brush a white wave of her hair to the side of her face.

Storm retrieved Wolverine using gusts of wind and the X-men boarded the Blackbird.

_Germany, 1995._

Raven pressed her forehead against the chilled window, and her warm breath caused condensation to form. Her nails dug into the wooden pane and she bit her lip to keep from screaming. Usually she had no trouble with concealing and/or completely eradicating unwelcome emotions, but the pain in which she felt was like nothing she'd been trained to handle.

"You did the right thing," Irene assured her. "If Erik discovered you and Nick had a child he would use it against you, Raven. I know this, I have _seen _this."

The words did not make the pang against her ribcage any more bearable. "Nick will never forgive me for giving Kurt away, no matter how _right _my reasoning was." Hatred boiled beneath her flesh and her golden eyes grew moist. She hated Magneto, she loathed everything about him.

"Nick will believe your story. He will accept that his son is dead and he will mourn by your side."

She heard the tap of Irene's walking stick and felt the older woman's hand clasp her shoulder.

"What about our daughter?" Raven placed a hand across her slightly-protruding stomach. "Have you seen her, too?"

Irene's unseeing eyes met hers and she nodded solemnly. "I have seen your daughter."

Raven waited for her to elaborate, but the details never came. "And? What will she be like?" She grew excited, cheerful even. Her baby girl…she would never give her up, she could never give a child up again.

Six hours had passed since Raven hid Kurt away. He'd looked up at her and smiled; he'd been so trusting.

"Trip mama? We go on trip?"

She wondered if a one-year-old could remember things. And if they could, how long it would take to forget. She couldn't stand the thought of Kurt crying out for her night after night, or jumping up every time the doorbell rang- thinking it was her coming back to get him.

"She will be beautiful, nearly angelic. And she will be powerful, Raven. Magneto's interest will prove to be dangerous."

Raven bared her teeth, silently seething with rage. She wished for the millionth time that she had not gotten involved with Magneto and dedicated herself to his cause. Because of that one mistake, she had to walk away from her son. She had to tell her husband-the person she loved most in the entire world- that his child had tragically fallen over a bridge; never to be seen again.

"I see her through many stages of her life. I see her as a grown woman. She is wrapped in white light-"

"I don't want to hear it," Raven snapped, "because it's not going to happen. I won't let him get her." Her words grew stronger as her determination became more fierce. "Nick and I will disappear. We've done it before and we can do it again."

"I will deceive Erik for as long as possible."

"What are you saying?" she shook her head stubbornly. "I can't leave you, Irene. You _know _I can't!"

The elderly woman patted her blue arm. "I have not seen myself in any of your daughter's childhood paths. I am meant to stay here and love her from afar."

Raven threw her arms around her old friend.

"Take your daughter and go far away, Raven. I have seen two futures in her path; you can stop Erik from finding her."

Raven wept against her wrinkled neck. "Thank you, Irene. I'll come back for you I swear-"

"No. You must never return." She held Raven's shoulders firmly. "Remember: whoever holds your daughter's heart holds the key to the universe. Protect her, love her, and hide away."

Raven kissed the woman once more before she ran to find Nicolas.

_Present Day._

The sky was a clear blue and the clouds were white and puffy. Cody ran ahead of her through the swaying wheat field; she giggled and yelled for him to slow down.

"Sorry, possum. Ah'm goin' some place ya can't follow." He gave her a sad wave, and with that disappeared into the golden wheat.

The smile slipped from her face and she stomped her foot. Cody was always picking on her for being the youngest. He would often do this: pretend like he was leaving her and then pop out of no where, causing her heart to spasm inside her chest.

Well, she wasn't going to let him fool her this time.

She ran right after him; the stalks of wheat brushed against her bare skin and her sneakers sunk into the moist ground. Her legs were shorter, but her temper gave her strength and allowed her feet to move faster and faster. Before she knew it she'd penetrated the field and found herself ankle-deep in the freshest, greenest grass she'd ever seen. The birds chirped and fluttered on the sagging branches of the willow, a river curved around the entire landscape and separated she and Cody from the gleaming gate: standing stark against the blue sky.

The light from the other side was so blinding she was forced to look away.

"Bye, possum," Cody called out. He got a running start and cleared the river with ease. She saw him reach for the gate, and she glared.

She followed him, but fell into the rushing water of the river. It wasn't terribly deep, and so she waded across the length towards the gate.

She blinked and found herself back where she started; on the opposite bank. She shook her head and tried again. And again. And once more to assure herself that she wasn't imagining things.

Cody looked so woeful. "Ah told ya, possum- ya can't come with."

She sat on the muddy ground and wailed for him to come back, to stay with her. She thought she saw him step towards her, but then the doors of the gate swung closed and Cody was gone.

…

It was the insistent pounding of her skull that ultimately woke Rogue. Her headache only snowballed when she took in her surroundings: The white walls and waxy tiled floor screamed 'hospital'. The stiff sheets tucked beneath her arms and the thin gown she wore only made the observation more compound.

A soft, almost soothing snore caught her attention, and she looked to the side. A man laid back in a comfortable looking chair; his white hair fell in soft waves, ending atop his broad shoulders.

She rolled onto her stomach and buried her face in the pillow. For a split second her hopes had raised, thinking Cody had been the one sleeping beside her- waiting patiently for her to wake.

But Cody was dead and she was finding it more than difficult to accept that awful truth. It was just so...unreal. He'd been there since she could remember, and not having him next to her was chilling, heart breaking. It made her want to shrivel up and waste away.

Yet, she could still feel him, could still hear his voice whispering inside of her mind. It was nearly torture.

She heard him shift, then yawn. "You're awake," he managed in his drowsiness. "I was beginning to think you'd never open your eyes."

She lifted her head from the pillow and watched him while he stretched and ran a hand through his silvery hair. Her heart clenched seeing the twinkle of his blue eyes.

Cody's eyes.

He stood up; his height was astounding. "Are you hungry?"

Her stomach growled and with a blush, she nodded. She could see that he expected her to speak, but when she opened her mouth, nothing came out. Her throat ached and her chest was in knots. She didn't understand how her body could continue living without Cody there.

His eyes softened, he seemed to understand. "I'm Joseph." He took her hand in his; she shivered from the chill of it. "There's no rush, okay?" He smiled and set her hand gently on the pillow. "I'll go get some food and you just let me know if it tastes good."

She felt the thick moisture of tears building up and she clamped her eyes shut. She waited until she heard the door swing closed before she let herself sob. Her hands bunched into fists as she clawed the sheets. Waves of misery wracked her body and soul. Cody was dead, and she couldn't stop herself from questioning her Lord and asking Him why Cody- the sweetest boy in the world?

He returned some ten minutes later, and Rogue sat up swiftly; wiping her hand across her eyes.

His face softened in understanding, but he seemed to know to not mention her weeping. "I brought a little bit of everything. Kitty said to give you lots of water, but I managed to sneak a few sodas in, too."

She accepted his offerings with a grateful, albeit small, smile, and proceeded to devour every morsel of food available.

Joseph could only sit and watch her in awe. "Where does it all go?"

She raised her eyebrow and he shrugged sheepishly. And deep down inside, a small sliver of sorrow broke away from her heart. Her lids grew heavy and he noticed.

"I should go." He gathered the trash on her lap and she could smell his fresh scent and the type of shampoo he used.

"Rogue," she blurted out. Her voice was raspy and unused. "My name is Rogue. Thanks for- for everythin'."

He grinned and some more of the cold left her stomach. "It's very nice to meet you, Rogue."

He moved to leave, but she couldn't help but clear her throat.

"Will you…come back later?" she asked when she had his attention. She hated how pathetic she sounded, but there were so many things she didn't know; so many things she had to explain: like how to contact her parents and where she lived and- God, she was sleepy.

"I'll be the first thing you see in the morning." She heard him chuckle to himself.

The last thing she saw before drifting into unconsciousness was his wholehearted smile.

…

"Explain one more time what you saw."

Remy threw his head back impatiently. He craved a cigarette so badly by this point, that he was about to just walk away and ignore the professor's questions. But the Cajun was used to keeping his temper in check, and so he was able to face the curious man before him and explain his story for the last time.

He described the changing color of her eyes and the words she'd spoken.

"So she's a mutant?"

Xavier clasped his hands together and sighed. "It would seem that way, Scott. After all, most mutations surface during times of extreme stress, and seeing her friend die was surely more than stressful."

"I feel so bad for her," Jean confessed. "My gifts were triggered seeing a friend's death. Now every time I use them I think of Anne."

With a red face, Scott rested his hand on hers. "That's awful, Jean."

Remy rolled his eyes at Scott's laughable attempt at providing comfort.

"What will we do when she wakes, Charles? The girl has been through so much already, what if she can't handle the news about her parents?"

"We can't just keep it a secret from her, 'Ro." Logan sat with his arms crossed and his legs propped against the table; obviously in thought. "The kid deserves to know. And trust me, any kid of Nick and Raven's has the grit to make it through."

The door to the professor's office opened and Joseph stepped through. He gave a wave to all present. "Just thought I should let everyone know she woke up-"

The inhabitants in the room pounced on the white-haired man; pummeling him with questions about the girl's personality and what she said and how she felt-

Remy used the chaos to his advantage, and snuck out the door to escape.

He lit a cigarette as soon as he was outside and winced as the full glare of the sun filled his vision.

He let his head rest against the brick of the house and closed his eyes. The cool breeze played with the tips of his hair, and the hem of his sleeveless shirt floated away from his stomach.

He didn't want to see the girl. Her innocent gaze, her tears, her disbelief at the dead boy in her arms; it reminded him all too much of Bella. Of Bella and her brother after the fight was done and the knife was no longer in his grasp, and her white dress was drenched in crimson blood and the girl he'd known all his life had turned her back on him like it was nothing.

Remy cursed the shitty cards he'd been dealt and he cursed his overactive mind for thinking too much. His fist pummeled into the wall behind him over and over again; he'd be surprised if it didn't bruise, and he wouldn't care if it did. In fact, he wished he could feel more pain. He could forgive himself for killing Julien; it'd been self-defense and Remy was glad he survived, but Belladonna's anguish: the screams she'd let out and the strength in which she'd gripped her brother's lifeless body…_that _he could never forgive.

He could use seeing a pair of blue eyes, and the feeling of blonde hair sliding between his fingers.

He called Tiffany. She was simple and uncomplicated; he could release his frustration inside of her and lose himself in her mindless chatter and mundane personality.

"_He's dead, Remy! Y' killed him! Y' killed my brother-"_

Remy definitely did _not _want to see that girl.

…

Later that night; when Tiffany slept peacefully with her head against his chest, Remy thought. He thought until the night crawled away and daylight took its place. He thought while Tiffany gave him a good-bye kiss and while he showered. He thought through breakfast and during his Danger Room exercises.

Finally, his brain stopped humming and he'd come to a decision: he _wanted _to see the girl. He wanted to comfort her and flirt with her and own her. He wanted to do the things he'd never gotten to do for Belle. And then he wanted to break the girl's heart and walk away from her; proving once and for all that Belladonna's cruel words had no lasting effect, that he was too strong to still ache for her, and that her abandonment wasn't still as painful as it was the day it happened.

He wanted to prove that he was just as heartless as people believed.

…

Joseph was true to his word. She opened her eyes to the sight of him sitting in the same comfy chair, only this time he was reading a magazine. She watched him until he noticed, but she couldn't understand why. He felt...safe, and warm. She was drawn to him because he exhibited the same traits as Cody, and sometimes, when he would smile or his blue eyes would crinkle, she'd let herself blur their faces together and for a blissful moment- it was like her childhood companion had never left.

She was reminded of all the things that needed discussing; she grew exhausted just thinking about them.

"There's a shower down here if you wanted to use it. I'm sure Kitty or Jubilee could loan you some clothes."

The idea sounded great, and she nodded. She was never one to show her weaknesses, to her, being filthy and wearing no make-up was unacceptable.

"I'll be right back."

She thanked him and watched his departure.

He returned with a brunette on his arm; Rogue didn't understand why the sight made her body stiffen and her guard go up.

"I'm Kitty." The girl thrust her hand towards Rogue with a big grin and the belle accepted it cautiously.

"Joseph tells me you need some clothes…" Kitty dumped two bagfuls of clothing onto the hospital bed and laughed when she saw Rogue's expression.

"All the girls wanted to pitch in," she explained; leafing through pink and black and sequined tops, bottoms, and everything else in between. "Jubilee donated her cosmetic bag, too, if you were interested."

"Sounds great," Rogue forced out, "Thanks."

Kitty looked down skeptically at her own flat chest, then looked at Rogue's full one. "You might, like, want to wear one of Tabitha's bras…she's probably the closest to your size."

Rogue went red when she saw Joseph go red, and Kitty's face followed the trend soon after. "How totally clueless of me! Joseph- get out of here! Like, girls only time, dude!"

She shooed him away; he managed to wave to Rogue before kitty shoved him out the door.

Rogue felt lonely when he left. He was the only 'friend' she had in the place, wherever she was, and the girl next to her wasn't exactly making her feel friendly.

"Sorry about that," Kitty sputtered. "My head is, like, in the clouds a lot." She motioned for Rogue to go through the clothes.

She lifted out a relatively normal-looking pair of jeans, underthings, and a plain blouse. She forced a smile in Kitty's direction before heading to the bathroom.

"Oh," she turned back to Kitty, "my parents- has anybody contacted them?"

The grin slipped from her mouth; her ponytail waggled as she shook her head. "No. but I'm positively sure the prof. will, like, discuss all of that with you later. You just worry about scrubbing up, kay?"

The bathroom door closed and Rogue's eyes narrowed, for some reason the girl had avoided the question.

"Shampoo and razors and all that good stuff are in the pantry. If you, like, need anything else just yell."

Rogue nodded gratefully, but couldn't shake the feeling of distrust. Call it paranoia, but something felt…off. Her parents should have gotten in touch with her by now. They should have been there when she woke up; not Joseph. She should've been in their arms, sobbing harshly over Cody's death and feeling their lips in her hair and hearing their comforting words in her ear.

She turned on the hot water and stepped in the shower. It beat against her head and skin and it felt nice. Soon; the hot water from the faucet and the hot tears from her eyes blended into one and she went about her grooming rituals in stinging familiarity. Everything was the same, yet nothing could ever go back to the way things were. She wondered briefly when, or if, her heart would cease to throb.

She washed the suds from her body and hair away, exhausted from all her grief and racing thoughts.

She wrapped a towel around herself and brushed her hair and applied some mascara, making sure all the while to avoid the mirror. She didn't want to know what she looked like, she didn't want to see the sorrow she knew was in her eyes. It would make Cody's death real; she didn't think she could accept that yet.

When she finished brushing her teeth and dressing; the belle stepped from the bathroom with her hair still dripping. Kitty was still there, waiting patiently in the chair-her cell phone in hand.

"Hey," Kitty said. "Feeling better?"

"Could ya take me to this 'professor' guy? Ah need to find my parents." She was tired of having to hold all of her emotions in because of all these strangers, she wanted her Daddy to coddle her and her Mama to kiss each and every one of her tears.

Kitty's cheeks went red and her mouth flopped open. "Um, well- just let me, like, go talk to him really quick first-"

Shoving her southern manners aside, Rogue brushed past the stuttering Kitty and threw open the door. She followed the white walk-ways and soon found herself in a hallway with wooden floors and russet-colored walls. She was in a _house_? And an ornately decorated house at that. The crown molding of the trimming looked ancient and well kempt; the oriental throw rugs were thick and sank pleasantly beneath her weight. Expensive pottery and portraits gave the place warmth, and the intricate lighting reminded her of a palace.

Where was she exactly? A palace?

"Rogue, wait!" Kitty appeared next to her; breathless. "I'll take you to see him; just-slow down…"

But Rogue was on a mission. She hooked her arm through Kitty's and urged her to go faster; she didn't allow Kitty to decrease her pace.

Kitty lead her to the tall, oak doors of the professor's suite, and Rogue felt some of her bravery leave. She gulped.

She poised her hand to knock.

_Manchester, Vermont._

She noted the harsh cold of the metal around her wrists, feet, and neck within the first five minutes of waking. She took a hurried inventory of her body, and felt that nothing was broken, sprained, or even bruised.

She hadn't expected Erik to treat her with such hospitality.

"Where are they, Erik?" She tried her best to keep her voice steady. "Where are Nick and my daughter?"

There was no answer. Just the stifling quiet of his platinum fortress and the sound of her own labored breathing. She gritted her teeth and attempted to shape-shift; when nothing happened she truly began to panic.

But years of callous, rigid training had long ago taught her the techniques to hide her feelings and insecurities, and it was with cold golden eyes that she scanned the room.

Erik knew about Rogue, which meant others did as well.

There were most likely dozens of other mutants searching for her daughter, and her innocent, sweet Rogue didn't even knew that she'd grow up to become the most powerful mutant on earth.

_Canada._

"You've failed, and now the X-men have her."

Sabretooth grumbled something under his breath and snorted at his employer. "What's the big deal about that little runt anyway? Nothing Mystique popped out could be _that _important-"

"Your job is not to think or question. Your job is to listen, carryout, and repeat. I don't pay you to question my reasoning, Creed."

A low growl started deep in his stomach, but the feral backed down. "Get me on a plane to New York; I have no problem roughing up a few X-men." He cracked his knuckles and grinned. His fangs gleamed in the low lighting.

The Superior leant back in his chair. "You're going back, but not alone."

Two figures stepped out of the shadows in grey suits and black boots. One was a woman of medium build with short, brown hair; the other was a tall man- his clipped black hair was close to his head.

"Murmur and Flex will accompany you. Maybe their _brains _will prevent you from making a fool of yourself...for a second time that is."

Sabretooth made another snide comment and left the room.

"I want that girl," The Superior said to the two remaining mutants. "I don't care what it takes. Do you understand?"

"Crystal clear, Superior."

"Yes, Superior."

* * *

Wasn't really satisfied with this chapter, but when am I ever?

A loud and loving shout out to: **Laceylou76**, my wonderful beta. Go check out her first fic (yes, she's finally decided to post something) it's a must read!

And thanks for all the support guys; love ya'll!

Feedback is encouraged.

**Edited: **10/02/10


	3. Xavier

_Xavier's School For Gifted Youngsters._

Kitty lead her to the tall, oak doors of the professor's suite, and Rogue felt some of her bravery leave. She gulped. She hadn't expected the moment to be so very intimidating.

She poised her hand to knock, but before her knuckle could connect with the mahogany door a voice seeped inside of her mind, making it so she could think of nothing else. Her mind went completely silent, save for the regal words of the man. She couldn't even hear herself think.

_There is no need to knock, my dear. I'm expecting you. Please come in._

Recognizing the look of both terror and awe on Rogue's face, Kitty smiled and ushered Rogue into the room. "He does that a lot," she explained. "But I guess if I was, like, the world's most powerful telepath I'd do that a lot, too." She gave one last preppy wave before shutting the doors.

Though Rogue found her presence annoying, she wished passionately that Kitty was by her side as she took in the grand office in all its grandeur. First Editions filled the bookcases and every inch of wood was polished; the furniture gleamed in the sunlight. There were expensive trinkets resting on the desk, and the curtains were brocaded. Her feet sank in to the lush, maroon carpet.

She twiddled her fingers nervously. She felt her face go hot, but attempted to speak nonetheless. "My name's Rogue, Ah just wanted to thank ya for your hospitality."

The professor smiled and wheeled to the front of his desk. "No thanking is in order. Have a seat, we have some things to discuss."

She nodded in absolute agreement, and did as the professor asked, sitting daintily in one of the three high-backed chairs; her hands rested delicately on her lap like a good southern girl.

Returning to his original place, Xavier smiled at her and his hazel eyes studied her intently. "I do not want to rehash old wounds, so let me simply say that all my condolences go to you for your loss." The sympathy in his voice rang true.

"Oh," she muttered, distracted by the swift ferocity in which the pain returned to her chest.

The morning had been so hectic and unnerving she'd somehow managed to push the sorrow to the back of her mind, but then, after the professor spoke his kind words; it returned with a vengeance. Cody…Cody was dead, and of all the things she'd imagined going wrong in her young mind, that thought had never even entered her thoughts. She and Cody were invincible, they grew up together and they would die together, but not until the were very, very old- with giggling grandchildren bouncing on their knees, and more white than color on their heads. But now? They were too young to die, their life together had just begun- And in a way, she didn't know exactly how quite yet, but in a way his death was her fault. Those awful men had wanted her but got him and killed him, and Cody was gone. All her dreams of eloping with him and having babies; of moving to California and buying a yellow house with a white picket fence are gone; laid to rest with Cody.

"Cody-" The sorrow was welling up I her throat. "Where is his…body?" His empty, soulless body.

He nodded serenely, as if he'd expected her to ask that very question. "We managed to contact Cody's parents after finding his wallet in his pocket. They took him and went to the hospital, but I'm afraid it was already too late."

He reached for the Kleenex on the edge of his desk, but Rogue knew she would not let herself cry in front of the strange man.

"What did ya tell 'em," she managed to rasp. She wondered briefly if Bill and Martha; the two people who were like her second parents- blamed her for Cody's death.

He hesitated with his answer. "My school is unknown for housing mutants, Ms. Fury. I cannot have scandals tied to this establishment, as it would endanger my students."

Disgust filled her stomach, she didn't think she wanted to know how he'd tricked them anymore. She ached for home even more passionately. "Where are my parents?" Her sense of politeness vanished for the time being; Mama would lose her mind if she could have seen the way her daughter cut the small talk and went right to the point: "Y'all have been real nice and Ah appreciate everythin', but Ah wanna get home, Ah _have _to."

The older man only secured his fingers together and studied the belle even more closely. Rogue had the good sense to bite her lip- thus preventing herself from blurting out something rude in her impatience. Xavier was obviously one of those few individuals who could remain calm in any situation. Rogue was brash and zealous, she _hated _waiting.

As if sensing her wavering endurance, the professor cleared his throat and broke the silence. "When my team landed in Mississippi, the first place they went was your home. I'm afraid-" he sighed heavily, dreading the next words: "I'm afraid your home was destroyed, and your parents were no where to be found."

Silence. Crushing silence. The light leaking through the velvet curtains swam in her vision and burned her cheek. She was blinded in one eye- she couldn't think, couldn't comprehend his words-

_No,_ her mind screamed. Her sweating hands grasped onto the arms of the chair, her lily-colored face went ashen. No, not her parents, too. Hadn't she lost enough? Wasn't watching her best friend and love of her life die right before her eyes enough pain for a lifetime? Her beautiful, crimson-haired mother- she couldn't have died! She was too clever and strong- and her father- his rows of sinewy muscle and fierce determination got him out of any and all trouble- they weren't dead, there was a mistake-

"My dear, don't lose hope." She'd projected her thoughts. "I don't think they are dead. In fact, Wolverine and Storm are out searching as we speak. If they're out there, we will find them."

She watched steady gaze and swallowed, she was unconcerned that he'd been able to read her thoughts for the time being. He seemed so confident of their survival, a face like his left no room for gloominess.

"If ya say so." She looked down, and her ivory hair fell across her eyes. "But what'll Ah do? Where will Ah stay?"

Obviously surprised by the strength she used to get herself back together, Xavier reached into his desk and pulled out a packet of papers. "We'd be more than happy to house you until your parents are found, but we'll have to complete some paperwork first."

She tried not to whine: "Paperwork? What kind of paperwork?" She wanted nothing more than to sleep. She was so exhausted from the tears and bad news and all-around grief. She didn't know how much longer she could keep herself together.

He shrugged and flipped to the first page. "Basic information: Name, age, date of birth, allergies, that sort of thing. You'll also need to see Hank for a physical." He paused after retrieving the pen. "And most importantly: the details of your mutation." He chuckled to himself. "I suppose that's one of the first things I should have asked-"

"Ah'm not a mutie- um, Ah mean- Ah'm not a _mutant, _suh."

"But my dear, one of my X-men saw-" He went silent, and mentally decided to leave the issue alone for the time being. "Never mind. Shall we begin?"

.

"And this," Kitty said as the elevators opened to reveal the floor below, "is the med wing. All the really interesting stuff is down that hallway…but only certain people are, like, allowed down there."

Rogue nodded knowingly, and stayed behind Kitty as they walked down the lighted hall. The walls were white, the floors were white, and the whole area had a sanitized feel to it that Rogue wasn't sure she liked.

"X-men stuff, right?"

Kitty's chocolate-colored eyes widened and her head turned to regard Rogue with surprise. "How did you-"

"My dad." And then, not wanting to bring up her parents, the belle stealthily changed the subject. "So the place Ah was in earlier, is that just for 'non- X-men'?"

"Yeah." The clear doors opened to the sides with a _swoosh_. "Hank is working on something in the lab today, otherwise we'd totally be upstairs."

Kitty stopped Rogue just as the first blue curtain came into view. "I should probably, like, warn you," she whispered in all seriousness, "Hank is kinda, like, _surprising_ to see for the first time. So don't freak out or anything."

Rogue felt annoyed that Kitty would think her such an idiot, but nodded anyway- her manners winning out once again.

Voices reached them. "Owe! _Vous soyez prudent! _Y' tryin' to make it worse?"

"I apologize, Remy," the other voice said with cool patience, "but I have warned you time after time that eventually Ororo was going to grow tired of your shenanigans and lose her temper, and what you did today during the DR session was completely inappropriate."

Remy rolled his eyes. "Don' care what she say, she knows she likes de attention. _Mais _dis-" he motioned toward his bandaged arm- "is jus' ridiculous! How I'm 'sposed to fix my trench, _hein_?"

"Maybe you could consider getting a new one." Kitty leaned against the wall and gave him a wink.

The two men looked towards the door and saw them standing there. Rogue couldn't help but notice the way the younger man's eyes looked right into Kitty's; there was an intense, heated emotion swimming behind his red irises that made Rogue blush.

"It, like, smells bad anyway." The corners of Kitty's mouth crinkled as she smiled, and her head tilted to the side in what Rogue assumed was meant to be adorable.

She fought the _very _strong urge to roll her eyes, but the kid and the doctor turned to mush right then and there. Rogue wondered what sort of history the two shared. Especially since the bad-boy with the shaggy locks didn't seem like Kitty's type. And the boy, well he seemed like any woman and every woman was _his _type.

"Been through some times wit dis t'ing, p'tite. Don' t'ink I could let it go now."

Kitty shook her head and giggled. "Sometimes I think you love that coat, like, more than people!"

His eyes flashed. "Not more den I care 'bout y', _chat_."

Kitty went pink, and Rogue wanted to vomit. After all, with a guy like Joseph on her arm- Kitty had no right or reason to flirt-no matter how harmlessly- with another man.

There was a pregnant silence in which Kitty and Remy gazed into each other's eyes. The doctor checked his watch and shuffled around some papers, and Rogue played with a stray curl and stared down at her feet awkwardly. She determined during the long stretch of silence that the doctor wasn't frightening at all. Sure, he was tall and large, but his brown eyes were warm and his tweed pants and vest looked professional, but not in an overwhelming way. Rogue wondered what Kitty had meant.

Her eyes flickered to the Cajun. He was handsome, maybe the most attractive male she'd ever seen besides Cody. He was model worthy; with perfect, bronzed skin and an unbelievably white smile. His hair was unkempt in the most attractive sense of the word, his build was lean but projected a sense of strength and power that Rogue found most intriguing.

But there was a cruelty there, too. He was pleasant to the senses: sight, smell, (and she assumed, blushing as she did so) touch. Underneath, however; was a viper ready to lash out. She could see it, and as his gaze turned to her with bored laziness, he could see that she saw through his facade. Instead of looking abashed, his smirk returned and he looked at her breasts, her hips, and then her reddening cheeks. His leering smile grew. His heated eyes burned her up and made her feel filthy somehow.

"Y' gonna introduce me to y' friend?" He leant back in the chair carelessly. "We've met before, _mais _I don' t'ink she remember me." He worked his face into the perfect picture of remorse, but she saw the mirth and sarcasm leaking through.

"This is Rogue," Kitty began. "Rogue this is Henry McCoy, the greatest doctor ever!"

The doctor flushed and waved her off. "You exaggerate, Kitty. I'm simply extremely passionate in what I do." He offered his large hand to Rogue and she accepted it meekly.

"Nice to meet ya."

"-and this is Remy, he's trouble- stay away." They all laughed.

Rogue wondered if Kitty realized just how true her words were.

"Dat's not nice." He was looking at her again, and Rogue thought she recognized him. "Don' want dis pretty _fille _to get de wrong idea 'bout me." He took her hand and placed a dramatic kiss against her knuckles.

In her embarrassment she recognized his face- as if she'd seen it in a blurry, nondescript dream, and it hurt. A white flash, burning and painful, sliced into the back of her head, and she almost fell forward. The man had been the first thing she'd seen after Cody's death. It'd been dark, like she was getting sucked back somewhere into a never ending pool of black tar. His voice alone had anchored her in the real world. He'd held her so gently, like a small child. How could she have forgotten about him until now?

"Y' okay?" He was right in front of her suddenly. His hands were on her shoulders, holding her up. "Wouldn't want y' gettin' hurt." His breath played across her forehead like a warm breeze.

She shoved him away, reeling from her momentary bout of weakness. "Ah'm fine." Her labored breathing gave her away.

His attention was back on her breasts.

"Hank?" Kitty took Rogue by the arm and pulled her towards an empty examining table. "This is Rogue, the one that, like, _everyone's _been talking about? She's here for her physical."

She helped Rogue into a sitting position. "What happened?" she murmured so Remy couldn't hear.

The belle shook her head. "Ah'm not sure. Ah guess Ah'm just tired and hungry." She would never admit that the Cajun had pulled the rug from under her feet with just his very presence. She couldn't help but be repelled from him: he'd been there when Cody died; she would forever equate his devilish smirk and easy words with pain.

Remy winked over at Hank. "How 'bout y' let her get some food 'fore y' give her de physical. Y' know how long it takes y' to do dem t'ings."

The doctor raised his eyebrow. "I _suppose _getting some breakfast would cause no harm-"

"_Merci beaucoup_." And with a smirk, he hurried Kitty and Rogue from the med lab. "Hate hospitals," he said jokingly as he whisked them away from the lab.

He smirked again and Kitty laughed, but Rogue could hear the echo of pain that resounded within his voice.

_Manchester, Vermont._

She'd been young once, and stupid. Maybe more stupid than most. She made her mistakes and she sometimes paid the consequences, but for the most part she remained immature and reckless. In fact, when she'd met Erik for the first time some fifty years before_(1)_, she'd been nothing more than a little blue imp running from the store she'd just stolen food from, and morphing into another child to fool the manager and policeman.

She'd finally found her safe haven in an alleyway behind dumpsters and garbage barrels, and sat down to enjoy her meager meal in peace.

"_Wake up, Raven."_

She'd been licking her fingers too thoroughly to notice the man enter the mouth of the alley. Before she knew it the lid of a garbage can was against her throat, and she was finding it hard to breathe. She tried screaming, tears had filled her eyes. The men found her and were going to kill her and all she'd wanted was some food-

"Do what you did before." His timbre was deep and demanded nothing less than absolute attention. The white of his hair glowed beneath the streetlight. "Show me what you did and I'll let you go."

_The cold on her wrists was biting into her flesh, there was a hand on her shoulder; shaking her._

"_Wake up, Raven. There's time for sleep later. Now is the time for catching up."_

Every fiber in her being was repulsed at the idea of letting someone see her power. Even at the tender age of eleven, Raven was hardened. She'd learned long ago that being a mutant meant you would get hurt, she learned to keep her power close to her heart. She'd learned to be alone.

"I have gifts too," said he, seeing her reluctance. "Want to see?" His hand raised and the lid dropped from her throat.

And right there in front of her, the lid morphed into a dancing, metal unicorn.

He'd looked at her and she'd looked at him.

_Xavier's School For Gifted Youngsters._

The first thing Rogue learned about Gambit ("_mais _Remy LeBeau to de ladies") was that he had not the slightest amount of respect for personal boundaries. He kept his arm around both of their shoulders even as they boarded the elevator, and only let go when a red-faced Rogue pretended to tie her shoe. His eyes had flickered down to her lace-less sandals, but he made no comment. Once again, his only response was that troublesome smirk. She was beginning to _hate _that damned smirk.

Kitty and Remy flirted and chatted amiably, while Rogue felt herself slowly backing up and huddling in the corner. She rolled her eyes at Kitty's: "Stop, Remy!" 's and- "You are, like, so funny!" 's.

Closing her eyes and thinking only of her weariness and all the information Xavier gave her, Rogue somehow managed to drown their pointless conversation and laughs out. And when she opened her eyes again, the elevator had come to a stop and the doors were opening.

Joseph had just walked passed by when he noticed the trio exiting the elevator, and he grinned brightly as Kitty bounded over to him.

Rogue felt her cheeks getting warm, and even warmer when Joseph noticed her.

"You're looking much better!" He placed his hand on her shoulder carelessly. "Has anyone given you the 'grand tour' yet?" he chuckled.

Rogue found herself speechless. She couldn't understand why Joseph's presence made her this way, or why he eased her sorrows temporarily. She opened her mouth to speak-

"I was jus' gettin' to dat actually," Remy smirked, and held Rogue's waist. "Jus' letting' de pretty lady get some breakfast first."

Rogue pried Gambit's hand from her wrist and distanced herself from him. He didn't even notice, because he was too involved in his staring-war against Joseph.

They were fighting over Kitty, and for some reason she couldn't fathom, she was actually disappointed. After all, her heart was still aching and Cody's death was still fresh in her thoughts- so why did she find herself comforted by the white-haired mutant? He was obviously taken, though Kitty made that fact questionable, and even if he was single it wouldn't be right for Rogue to feel something for another man when the love of her life had passed away so recently.

"Joseph?" Kitty tried, sensing the tension between the two men as clearly as Rogue had, "Let's go, okay? I've got, like, tons and tons of homework." She tugged on her boyfriend's arm.

He followed reluctantly. "I'll see you around, Rogue." He gave her a smile.

Rogue nodded, then watched Remy's face as the couple departed. He was knee-deep in angst and longing.

"De kitchen's dis way." He spun around and headed the opposite way of Kitty and Joseph.

She snapped her attention away from her examination, and followed his brisk pace. "Thanks for showin' me around- Ah really appreciate it."

As much as she disliked the man, and as much as he creeped her out- Rogue didn't like seeing anyone's misery. She was a people pleaser at heart, and she'd often spent hours cheering Cody up after the team lost a game, or making her Mama laugh when she was missing her husband while he was away.

His playful mask reappeared in the wake of her concern. "Anyt'ing for a pretty t'ing like y'self."

She looked away from his eyes and gleaming smile. "Ah wish ya wouldn't talk to me like that." She glanced back to gauge his reaction, and she could see the surprise he expressed.

"Can't a _homme _tell de truth?"

She flicked her hair back haughtily and shrugged. "Ah have no problem with men tellin' the truth, but you're not tellin' me the truth."

"Alright." He stopped in front of her, his smirk was gone." I'll tell y' de truth, _mais _y' can't get mad at me once I tell y'."

Rogue's widened and she nodded in all seriousness, fully expecting him to reveal the secret of he and Kitty's past and the pain that went with it.

He did the opposite, and dropped dramatically on his knee- taking her hand as he did so. "De truth is dat from de very first moment I saw y' I knew y' were de one. I'm in love wit' y', Rogue. Run away wit' me an' we'll live happily ever after!"

She knew he was joking, he was sporting a goofy grin after all, but it was not funny to Rogue. She was reminded all too vividly of her dreams of this moment: the day Cody would propose. And he never would, because he was dead, and Remy was making o mockery of her most secret desire.

She snatched her hand away as if in pain. His smile dropped and in horror, Rogue realized that she was crying in front of the sarcastic, strange man.

She registered trough her blurred vision that he'd put a comforting hand on her back, and that her response had been to throw her arms around his waist and bury her soaked face in his chest. She knew she would suffer from all-encompassing embarrassment later, but now she didn't care. She was tired of pretending to be some emotionless, strong adult. She was fifteen years old, she was a child. She wanted her Mama to tuck her into bed with a mug of hot cocoa, she wanted her Daddy to try and make her happy by twirling her around like he had when she was little.

"Ya an' Ah-"

He could barely understand her, but he listened closely anyway. Getting closer to the belle was seemingly easier than he'd originally thought. Helping a woman in need was always a great start to gaining their trust, and he'd hardly done any work at all.

"-we were the last ones to see him. He shouldn't have had to die, Remy. He was so young an' it's- it's all my fault!"

People were starting to stop and stare, and with a start- Rogue realized she was causing quite the scene by sobbing so passionately in the middle of a hallway- especially in the arms of a man like Remy LeBeau. She hadn't been in the mansion long, but it wasn't hard for her to deduce that Remy had a reputation. Guys like him always did.

"Come on," said Remy, understanding her frightful gaze, "let's get y' some air."

.

_JFK International Airport._

He cracked his knuckles and leered at a passing blonde. "Here's my plan," he growled to the woman and man on his side, "I say you let me break into the mansion and grab that little runt. Once the X-men are distracted you can get the girl." Sabretooth turned to regard the two. "How does that sound?" His canines shone brightly in the fluorescent light.

"It seems like Superior was right in sending us to baby sit, Kara," he said into her ear, though he knew their companion could hear him.

Murmur smirked coolly.

"Think you're funny, shit head?" He spun on the man and bared his fangs. "Why don't you say somethin' else, I beg you to! I'll take care of you like I took care of your wimp of a brother-"

At the mention of Jared, Flex grew furious and his hand formed into a metal spear. "You bastard-"

"Enough," she spat, and grabbing each of their arms- persuaded them into silence. "The whole point of this trip is _not _to call attention to ourselves you idiots!" She didn't let her hold over them wane until she was sure they were calm.

"Keep him away from me," Adrian spat. He proceeded to grab his luggage and storm toward the doors.

She glared at Sabretooth, who only laughed. "That temper must run in the family."

.

_Xavier's School For Gifted Youngsters._

He was an excellent distraction, she discovered that much about him as they walked along the tree line and towards a white gazebo. When it came to actual substance, however, Remy was not the kind of person she wanted to talk to about her problems.

But maybe his frivolous and shallow conversation was just what she needed. Their discussion was uncomplicated-easy. She didn't have to think, and that was a welcome notion because she was so _tired _of thinking: thinking of Cody and her parents and the thought that she was alone, completely alone, in a house of strangers in a faraway state.

They reach the gazebo, and Remy leans against a white post while she sits on the bench and crosses one leg over the other. She felt his eyes on her as she studied some kids playing football.

"What?" she asks, no longer able to ignore his searching.

He smiled, but his eyes remained focused. "I wanted to apologize actually. I wasn't t'inkin'-"

She shook her head and went back to watching. The noon sun was high and burning in the sky- it made the grass look greener and the small gnats that buzzed above the lawn more visible. "Ah don't wanna talk about it, Remy." Her hand bunched into a fist atop her lap. "It doesn't matter, me cryin' an' ya apologizin' ain't gonna bring 'em back."

He sat next to her, and purposefully brushed his fingers against hers. "Dem some wise words, _chérie_." He leaned back on his elbows and glanced up at her. "Wisdom usually comes wit' sorrow. 'Least, dat's why my _Tante _used to say."

The breeze picked up and blew her scented curls into his face. With a startled laugh, she tried to pull her hair from where it stuck on his lips.

He wrapped his hand around hers and placed a kiss on the top of her knuckles. "Promise me y' won' cry anymore, _d'accord_?" His smile was lazy yet warm, his eyes bored into her and she felt her resistance being siphoned away.

Her own smile had long ago vanished with the close proximity and lure of his words, and the place he had just kissed was burning pleasantly. She couldn't even register what he had said, the only thing she could see was the direction of his movement and the nearing sight of his lips.

Her wrist was still in his grasp, and she could feel him using that advantage to bring her closer.

Cold sanity splashed over her, and it was like waking from a trance. Her free hand found its way against his chest, effectively stopping his persual.

"Ah don't even know ya!" She fumbled with the hem of her blouse and stood shakily. "An' Ah love Cody, Ah could never-"

He was in front of her, once again invading her personal space. "Maybe y' jus' need somethin' to get him off y' mind?" Remy tugged on a lily white curl playfully and stepped closer. "And Remy is jus' de _homme _to do it for y'-"

Rogue slapped him as hard as she could across the face, and all went silent in the confines of the gazebo.

"Ah don't know who the hell ya are, but Ah ain't a whore!" She sent him one last venomous scowl before spinning on her foot daintily and stomping back to the mansion.

Remy rubbed his stinging cheek gingerly, and grinned at the belle's retreating form.

He liked it when they played hard to get.

* * *

(1): It is said in the comics that due to her powers, Mystique ages at a much slower rate than most people.

I am so sorry for the delay, y'all. Life's been hectic, and unfortunately TIAD had to take a backseat for a while. I hope you enjoyed the major ROMYness, and what is the story between Remy and Kitty?

Oh: Murmur and Flex belong to Marvel. As does pretty much everything else. I'm not going to say it every chapter.

Feedback is encouraged.


	4. Meetings

_Salem Center, New York._

Murmur adjusted the zoom on the binoculars and made an agitated sound beneath her breath. "Whose stupid idea was this to observe from a _parked car _again?" Her short hair blew softly against her neck, and she brushed it away impatiently.

Flex shrugged. "I don't know." He went back to working on the recording device. His fingers had morphed into individual tools, and sweat was beginning to form on his forehead. "At least that big buffoon isn't here to bother us."

The brunette rolled her eyes and sank back into the seat of the car, throwing the binoculars in the backseat as she did so. "We've been scoping out this place all day, Adrian. It's air tight."

"Well what did you expect? It's home of the most powerful mutants in the universe." Using his shirt to wipe away the moisture on his face, he made the final touches. "And that's why we have things like _this _to help us." He held his creation up into the light with a triumphant grin.

She crossed her arms over her chest and glanced at the greenery skeptically. "And how, pray tell, is a fake flower going to help us?"

Flex repositioned himself so he was facing her. "See that?" He pointed to the middle of the plant.

Her eyes squinted, and she leaned closer. "See what? It's just a fake flower, and a crappy one at that."

"Or is it?" He grabbed his automatic magnifier and held it over the petals. "That's the magic of technology."

Sure enough, as Kara peered closer a black dot came into focus, and the black dot soon became an intricate working of miniature cameras.

"You clever bastard," she whispered in awe. "If we can get this inside of the mansion—"

"Then we get the inside scoop, and in turn: the girl. It's a conditional proof, simple really." He slipped on his sunglasses and hopped out of the car. "Look," he called as he lifted the hood of the vehicle.

She was curious to see what he was doing, but did as he said and looked discreetly towards the mansion. She watched as a red convertible sped out of the garage, whirled around the circular driveway, and then shot through the half-opened gates. It was speeding towards them.

"There's someone coming," she hissed.

Flex nodded and lowered his shades to wink at her. "Exactly."

She opened her mouth to protest, but then understanding made her just as smug as he. "It's times like these when I think being your partner might be worth all the shit you put me through."

Just as Flex had expected, the red car pulled over to the side of the road, and a lanky teen with red-tinted sunglasses stepped out of the vehicle.

"Is everything okay? It's looking like you're having some car trouble."

Flex sighed gratefully. "Thank god someone stopped!" He shook Scott's hand, then stepped back as the young man took a look under the hood. "We've been here for almost an hour!"

Scott rolled up his sleeves and got to work. "Yeah, people don't travel down this road very often." He paused, then glanced up at the smiling man. "Speaking of…why _are _you guys all the way out here?"

"I'm afraid that would be _my _fault."

Murmur jumped over the side of the car and landed daintily on the pavement.

Scott tried his hardest not to gawk at all the woman's exposed, tanned flesh, but he was only a hormonal teenaged boy after all.

She smiled at the look he was giving her. "I dragged poor Adrian out here to find a friend who recently moved near this area." She bit her lip forlornly. "Maybe you know her?"

Cyclops smacked his lips together in an effort to produce saliva in his steadily drying mouth. "I'm sure I could—" his voice cracked as she stepped closer, "—help you out. What's this friend's name?"

She smiled sweetly. "Rogue. She's a cute little thing." She held her hand against her shoulder. "She's about five foot, has long brown hair, and the prettiest green eyes you ever saw—"

Flex nodded in agreement. "She _does _have the prettiest eyes."

Grinning, Scott silently thanked his luck that he would be able to help the gorgeous woman practically draping herself across his shoulder. "Sure, I've heard of her. She's the new girl—she's only been here a week I think."

Kara's eyes slid over to Adrian's, and a secretive smirk was shared between them. Their girl was here, alright, and all Kara had to do was give the boy a little touch and they were in.

Her hand clasped his bare arm. "Thank you so much," she gushed. "I don't know what I would've done if you hadn't come by!"

Scott went tomato red and shook his head. "It was nothing, really." His chest steadily grew from a mixture of both arrogance and hot air. "I make it a point to know about each and every new recruit we have staying at the mansion, so that I can explain the rules and make their stay as enjoyable as possible—"

The place where she was touching him went numb, and Scott felt the rest of his body follow suit. His heartbeat and breathing slowed down, his eyes grew heavy, and his stomach turned into a basin of hot, liquid mush.

"I always make sure to—to—" What was he talking about again? The woman was so beautiful—even more so than when he'd first seen her. Her hair was like black silk and her eyes were like two of the shiniest pennies he'd ever seen. And her smile—she was just so beautiful.

"Scott?" she murmured. "How are you feeling?"

She was so perfect, and her voice was a melody. "Great," he sighed.

"I'm glad to hear that, but I'm not feeling so great. Do you know why, Scott?"

He didn't know why she was upset, but he wanted to. He wanted to make it so the woman before him only knew of happiness, joy, and laughter. If she was his woman he'd lavish her with gifts and do everything in his power to please her. Whatever she wanted: presents, food, anything—he'd find some way to give it to her. Knowing she was sad made him sad, he wanted her to smile again.

"Let me do something to help you!" He got on his knees and wrapped his arms around her legs. "I'll do anything for you. I love you!"

Adrian sniggered under his breath and Kara grinned cockily. "Well, there is _something _I want-" She sighed and shook her head helplessly. "But I'd hate to be a burden-"

"A burden?" Scott gasped. "You could never be a burden!" His eyelids fell even more heavily as her spell flowed more freely in and around his senses. "I would do anything for you, remember? Anything at all—"

"Oh, Scott. You're such a sweet boy." She ran her finger down his chin and knelt down to his level. "Now, I want you to listen very closely, sweetheart.

_Xavier's School For Gifted Youngsters._

The headaches were back with debilitating intensity. Never—not even when she'd first gotten them two years ago—has her head pounded so very painfully. She'd tried every type of pain medication she could get her hands on, she'd tried pressing heating pads against her forehead like Kitty suggested, drinking hot tea like Ms. Munroe suggested, and she'd even tried taking Mr. Logan's advice and went down to the gym for some exercise.

None of it worked. If anything, the migraines were getting worse. Mama used to ease her pain by laying her cool hand on Rogue's cheek and singing softly. She whispered to Rogue that everything would be okay, and that someday—the headaches and pain would be worth it. Rogue had believed her back then, and she desperately wished she could now.

The door knocked, and Rogue buried her face deeper into the blanket. She opened her bloodshot eyes a crack and saw her roommate motion for her to go back to sleep. Rogue did as she was told and listened remotely as Kitty spoke with their visitor.

The professor had (somehow) gathered that Rogue and Kitty were friends, and had in turn moved Rogue right in to Kitty's room.

Kitty was thrilled with the idea, but Rogue could only shake her head and laugh bitterly at cruel irony. More often than not, Joseph would visit, and Rogue would have to make up some excuse to leave—or risk vomiting. They weren't particularly affection while she was around, in fact, they made an effort to include the belle in their conversations and jokes. Still, Rogue felt in the way, and she knew as soon as she closed the door behind her that they were probably making out or worse—not that Kitty was that kind of girl. Rogue could tell that even at age eighteen, Kitty was just as virginal as she. Which came as a surprise at first, seeing as Kitty _had _dated Remy LeBeau.

Kitty's purity was just one more reason why Rogue couldn't _logically _hate her—along with her sincere kindness and big heart.

"Is Rogue here? I need to speak with her."

Rogue recognized the voice of Scott—self-appointed leader of the team—but frowned at the monotone of his voice. It was almost as if he was sleep-walking.

"She's, like, _really _tired, Scott. I'm sure you've heard about her headaches," Kitty whispered, disgustingly courteous of Rogue's condition as usual.

"Of course I have. I _am _team leader." He sounded more like himself then. "I just came to bring her these."

There was a rustling of plastic and a delighted gasp from Kitty. Curiosity winning out, Rogue peeked her head over the blanket and regarded the scene through tired eyes. Kitty held a bouquet of pretty orange flowers in one hand and a small, white card in the other.

"Look!" She hopped over to Rogue's bed excitedly and shoved the flowers in her hand. "Someone sent you _flowers_!" She sighed dreamily and clutched her heart. "That is _so _flippin' romantic!"

Yawning, Rogue roused herself from bed and accepted the gift. She sniffed the flora skeptically. They were kinda pretty, but she wasn't a girl to swoon over a bouquet.

Or maybe she had been one day—back before mutants, X-men, and death had entered her sheltered life.

"What's the tag say," Kitty asked eagerly.

Rogue shook herself from her dark thoughts and eyed the un-signed card. "'From your secret admirer.' No name." She snorted and threw the flowers into the trash basket. "Ah bet ya anythin' they're from that stupid Cajun." She returned to her curled position and let her eyes close.

"But—" Kitty sent an anxious glance towards the basket. "Don't you want to keep them, even if they are from Remy? It's, like, so sweet that he did that, Rogue. Maybe you could, like, I don't know—give him a chance?"

"Hell. No." She turned over onto her stomach. "He's a player, Kitty. An' he's annoyin', self-centered, obnoxious—"

"But he, like, _really _likes you, Rogue," she pushed, "I've never seen him try this hard before! I mean, come on: leaving romantic letters in your pockets? Buying you chocolate—and you know you would, like, kill for chocolate—and now he's sending you flowers, too?" Kitty blushed at the sour look Rogue was giving her, but continued on anyway: "At least talk to him!"

Rogue pulled the covers over her head in an attempt to drown out the annoying girl. "He wants what he can't have. An' even if he was some kinda prince charmin' Ah wouldn't be interested." She felt tears prick her eyes and she bit her lip harshly. "Please leave me alone, Kitty. Ah'm really tired."

Kitty heard the thickness of Rogue's voice and patted her back through the cotton blanket. She felt Rogue stiffen, but paid no mind. The young girl beneath her was sad, deeply so, and though Kitty had only known the belle for a short week and a half—she could already see the start of drastic changes in the way she behaved: in the constant dullness in her once-vibrant irises, in the dark crescents underneath her eyes, in the falseness of her smile.

"Okay, hun. If you, like, need anything, call me."

Rogue's lip trembled and she clamped her eyes closed even tighter in the safe cocoon of her comforter. "'Kay. Thanks, Kitty. Ah mean it." And she did.

Kitty flipped the light switch and shut the door behind her softly. She turned around to continue walking down the hallway when she noticed him leaning against the wall, an ace of spades moving impossibly fast in between his fingers.

"How's she doin'," he murmured, keeping his burning gaze on her while continuing to perform his card trick.

She couldn't help but watch the movement and be fascinated. She'd seen Remy's abilities many times before, but the things he could do with his hands never ceased to amaze her.

She blushed after thinking that, and rightly so. "She still, like, feels like total crappity-crap-crap." Kitty pursed her lips and stood closer to the Cajun. "I feel so bad for her, Rems! Poor thing, she's already been through so much—this is the _last _thing she needs."

Remy nodded in agreement as he walked along with the brunette. "Don' get all depressed on me, _chat_." His arm snaked around her waist playfully and he pulled her close. "Y know how much I like seein' y' smile."

Kitty smiled. "I like seeing you smile, too." She raised her eyebrow. "Which is why I wanted to, like, bring up the whole 'Tiffany' issue." Her ponytail waggled as she shook her head. "She's nothing but trouble, Rems, and I'm only saying this 'cause I care about you—"

He changed the subject quickly. Remy could handle a situation if things were light and playful, but anything remotely heavy went beyond him. "If y' _really _cared 'bout me, y' would've already convinced Rogue to go out wit me."

"But—"

He removed his hold on her and cupped his hands over his ears. "Nope, I ain't listenin'!"

Kitty's face went pink and she ripped Remy's hands away. "I've been trying, but she always has a reason why she can't, like, give you a chance! It's the same thing every time: 'he's a player'—which you kinda, like, _are_ by the way—'he's too old', 'I'm just a challenge'—"

He grinned in all-out amusement. "She said dat?" He chuckled, then said under his breath: "Maybe de _fille _is smarter than she looks—"

Kitty elbowed his ribs and gave him a reproachful glare. "Don't try and act all, like, badass. You and I both know you're crushing on her mega hard!" She gave him a secret smile and made sure no one was within hearing distance. "I knew you were the one who sent her those über gorgeous flowers, by the way." She gave him an excited tug. "She, like, _totally _tried brushing it off, but I could so tell she was hardcore trying not to smile."

"Dat so?" He frowned in thought and mentally went through his daily activities. He'd gotten up, he'd eaten, he'd spent the afternoon and early evening with Tiffany—no, there hadn't been enough time to send flowers.

Kitty smiled up at him. Her warm eyes and trusting face had the same effect as usual, and for a second he considered telling her the truth.

It was a very brief second.

"Maybe I go in dere an' cheer her up, _hein_?"

"Not tonight," she said. "She was finally able to fall asleep."

He puffed out his cheeks childishly and stuck his tongue out at her. "Fine, _mais _y' gonna have to help me occupy my time, _d'accord_?"

The energy between them intensified. Kitty felt her heart in her throat. "Um, well, I—" She backed away from Remy's advance. "I would really, um, like to but I—I—" She looked around desperately. "I left a pie in the oven!" She snapped her fingers, more than satisfied with herself. "That's right, and I have to go get it, like, now!"

She made to leave, but was stopped by the firm grip on her arm. She turned to see Remy's sad smile and questioning eyes.

"Y' still too innocent to lie good, p'tite." The weak smile left his mouth altogether. "Seems like ever since Joseph entered de picture—"

Kitty tried twisting away from him, but he was determined. "Please, Remy. Not now—"

"Den when?" he snapped, though his voice remained controlled and icy. "When y' gonna tell me why y' fucked me over for _him_? For dat sonova—"

She burst into tears, and with a start, Remy let her go. He hadn't wanted that to happen. He'd wanted to confront her, yes—he had for a very long time, but not now, and certainly not like _that_.

"_Désolé._ I don' know where dat came from—"

She turned to hide her sobbing and retreated back to she and Rogue's room.

_Manchester, Vermont._

"I won't do it," she decided, and her tone left no room for argument. "I'll never set up my own daughter, Erik. Nothing you can do will ever make that happen." She closed her tired yellow eyes and tried ignoring the sharp pain in her wrists.

He made a disappointed sound beneath his breath. "Well that _is _a shame, Raven. After all the years we've been friends—"

"Friends?" she shouted incredulously. "More like a servant and her master! I left you for a reason, Erik. You and I were _never _friends."

The older man stroked his white beard and made no attempt to hide his grin. "I suppose you are right. But yours is a binding contract, Raven. You signed your life away that day, and I expect to be repaid in full."

Mystique growled and thrashed about wildly. "God damn you Erik," she hissed, "damn you to _hell_."

Erik only shook his head. "Now don't go and hurt yourself." With that, he left the room—his cape swinging around him all the while.

_Bronxville, New York._

The feral wanderer strolling down the dark streets absolutely screamed 'danger'. His massive shoulders and bulging arms were testing the limits of the leather jacket he wore, and his muscular legs pounded against the pavement in a movement full of both purpose and prowess.

He turned onto Arthur Avenue, and the light from the streetlight shone off of his bared canine teeth and made them glow eerily. The coarse, blond hair of his mane and beard curled atop his head and down his face in thick tangles.

He snarled at anyone fool enough to even glance in his direction.

He grinned as he reached the appropriate location and knocked harshly on the door. _This _was the type of work he enjoyed: employing seedy miscreants to do all the work, while he got all of the glory. Of course, he'd wanted to snatch the girl himself and have a little fun with her before handing her over to Superior, but they couldn't have any mistakes this time—at least, that was what the boss said.

The door opened before Sabretooth could pound a fourth knock.

"Creed," was the man's only form of a greeting.

"Frankie!" Chuckling, he shoved his way in and clasped the man on the shoulder. "Been a long time since the California, huh?"

The smaller man felt the shivers and thrills of the old times, and shrugged. "I haven't changed a damn bit since then, Creed, and from what I hear: neither have you." He knocked away Sabretooth's hand and shut the heavy door. "But you haven't come here to chit-chat, have you?"

The gruesome smile on his face grew and he made himself comfortable on the nearby sofa. "No, but I ain't on no damn schedule. How's about getting an old friend a drink?"

Frank stayed by the door in his expensive robe and soft pants. "You're no friend of mine, _Der Schlächter. _[1]_" _The lines between his eyebrows deepened, and he let his hand rest on his pistol for some sort of comfort—though he knew it would do no good against his guest's healing abilities. "I'm only doing this to—"

"I know, I know," said he, noting the violent tremors going through Frank's arms and hands and the rapid twitching of his eyes. "You're only doing this to get back at Fury." He got up and went into the kitchen to get himself a drink. "You'd think after all these years you'd let go of all that." He laughed heartily, but was cut short as a bullet pierced the bottle in his hand and sent its contents to the floor.

He turned, unconcerned with his bleeding hand, to find a sweating Frank in the doorway.

He slipped his gun back into his pocket. "Now come back into the living room so we can discuss how I'm going to make that bastard's life a living hell."

Victor shook his head, and dropped the remaining shards of glass onto the cheap linoleum. "Seems like someone forgot their manners." His nails extended slightly and he stalked closer to the man. "I don't like it when I'm treated rudely," he growled.

His changing, blue and grey eyes remained calm and he did not back down. "Don't try that rubbish on me, Creed. You know I've been waiting for years to find an opportunity like this." He blinked involuntarily. "And now I have it. Just tell me when I can get that little bitch and deliver her to you."

His arm fell back by his side. "You're no fun." He pulled a rolled-up folder from his pocket and tossed it to his companion's waiting hands. "It's all there." He was grinning his horrible grin again. "We have a couple operatives setting up surveillance on the girl as we speak. It's only a matter of time before you get the green light."

He kept grasping and un grasping the information in his hands. "I'm sure you wouldn't mind if I roughed her up a little first, would you?"

Sabretooth chuckled gleefully. " 'The Constrictor'[2] is back, ladies and gentleman."

Frank was happy for the first time in a long time. "Now, Victor—how's about that drink you mentioned earlier?"

_Xavier's School For Gifted Youngsters._

As the two girls slept, the start of a master plan was beginning to take place.

A spider-like structure made entirely of small cameras hopped up from the trash basket and rested on the ledge. Its blinking red eyes made small, clicking noises as it scanned the length of the room.

It jumped from the ledge and scurried across the floor over to the balcony doors. Once there, the creature climbed up one side of the wooden frame and paused on the upper most corner. After a moment of being still, the mechanical spider stabbed one of its tiny—but powerful—legs through the wall and left it there. It looked like nothing more than a sliver of wood, but it was powerful enough to keep watch over the entire expanse of the bedroom.

The minute machine jumped from its place on the balcony doors and landed deftly on Rogue's bed. It was so light that it caused not even the slightest movement or sound, and the girl remained undisturbed. The rest of its legs carried it to the door, and it wriggled its way underneath the door. It once again paused, this time to scan the hallway and confirm that there were no beings wandering around that might spot it.

Once it was sure of its safety, the creature hopped onto the far wall and went up. It deposited another one of its legs in the wall, making it so the hallway was completely visible to its maker.

It continued on its way throughout the mansion, until it ran out of pieces to break off and embed.

…

Both Rogue and Kitty awoke with their eyes puffy and bloodshot. They roused themselves from bed with equally sour expressions, but managed to give each other small, albeit comforting smiles.

Kitty went to take a shower in the adjoining bathroom, while Rogue went to her side of the closet. She vividly remembered the day she'd gone out with Jean—a red-head Rogue found herself quite disliking—Kitty, of course, and Ms. Munroe, the woman who'd been searching non-stop for her parents.

She remembered the day so vividly not because of the beautiful dresses, skirts, shorts, and shoes they let her buy, or because they let her pick out her own bed coverings and decorations, or even because they were all so very kind and obviously wanted to help her in anyway they could—she remembered every detail because it was a realization. It meant that they still hadn't found her parents, it meant that they assumed that she'd be staying for much, _much _longer than a few days, or even a few weeks.

It meant that her parents: her beautiful mother and her strong, laughing father—could be just as dead as Cody was, and that she was all alone. She didn't have any aunts or uncles, she didn't have any grandparents, cousins, or siblings. It had been just her and just them, and she'd never regretted that fact as much as she did now.

Biting her lip to keep herself from shedding more tears, Rogue ran her hands along the fabric of her dresses and blouses. She marveled at the difference between her own side of the closet and Kitty's side. Where Kitty's was filled with pinks, light blues, lilacs, and whites; Rogue's was a rainbow of deep emeralds and reds, navy blues, dark violets, and blacks. Though she didn't have much of the 'dreaded color', there was still more of it, 'it' being black, present than she'd ever owned or worn in her entire life. A few short weeks before, her closet had looked almost exactly like Kitty's.

But dressing how she used to felt inappropriate somehow. She wasn't that same Rogue anymore. She wasn't innocent and carefree like she had been in Mississippi; she now knew what it was like to hurt and cry bitter tears and to prey for God to take her away so she wouldn't have to feel so much pain. She'd earned the right to leave the frilly colors behind.

She snorted at herself after thinking that comment, and pulled down a violet, cotton dress and a white cardigan. New York's May was a hell of a lot chillier than Mississippi's May.

The bathroom door opened to release a wave of hot steam. Kitty appeared from the mass with her jeans and shirt slightly wet and her hair in a towel.

She gave Rogue a wink. "It's all yours."

She hummed to herself as she sat at her vanity and applied her make-up, and humming soon turned into singing. Minutes later she was adding hand and face motions to her song. Whatever saddened Kitty last night had been pushed to the back of her mind. Rogue wished with all of her might that _she _could put her sadness away like Kitty could.

"Okay," she replied, and gathered her shower bag and clothes. She waited until she was in the bathroom before she let her daily amount of tears fall. She wondered if Kitty had ever done the very same thing.

…

She'd just finished tying her wet hair into its usual ponytail when a lanky blur appeared behind the balcony doors. Rolling her eyes, she stood up and opened the two doors at once.

The sight revealed was a sheepish Remy. "Y' still mad about last night?" he tried, a nervous smirk on his mouth.

She nodded curtly. "Yup."

His face fell, and he began to pout. "Dat mean I can't come in?"

"Yup." She moved to shut the doors.

He blocked the motion by stepping in the doorway. "Come on, _chat_. Can't y' forgive dis fool Cajun?"

Kitty's hand tightened on the doorknob. "It's just, like, I—" Her eyes found his. "You're sort of, like, right. Things _have _been different between us. We don't hang out like we used to, we don't talk as much—"

"It's cause a Joseph," he deadpanned. "Y' _always _wit 'em."

She went red. "That is so totally unfair, Remy!" Her hands turned into fists. "It's not just _my _fault!"

He crossed his arms over his chest and fell back against the corner. His expression was of bored patience and obvious amusement. Making _le chat _hiss and claw happened to be one of his favorite things to do.

"You're constantly with that blonde bimbo,"—she used her fingers to keep track—"or you're somewhere getting drunk, or you're hanging somewhere that I don't—and don't _want _to—know about. Honestly! All it is with you is partying, girls, and more partying!" She finished her rant and stood before him panting.

"Oh."

Both turned to see Rogue standing in her robe.

Remy smirked and made no effort to hide his undressing once-over. He even had the audacity to wink at the blushing belle.

Her arms automatically went around herself and she did her best to burn him with her glare. "What's _he _doin' here?" She was asking Kitty, but her acidic gaze was still on Remy.

Kitty didn't do well when put on the spot. "Remy was here to, to—" Something clicked in her brain, and her nervous fluttering ceased. She smiled coolly. "Remy's here to, like, make sure you got your bouquet. Right, Remy?"

He couldn't seem to turn away from the sight of Rogue's dripping curls and oh-so-heated scowl. She was young—he wasn't yet sure _how _young, and wasn't sure he wanted to know; it could ruin everything—but her curves were far more developed than the age he assumed she was, and the sterile, hopelessness in her eyes reminded him a little of himself.

But the girl didn't know _true _agony, and though his intentions with her were far from noble, he still wished that she never would.

"I said: right, Remy?" She stomped on his foot, and smirked at his answering yelp.

"_Oui_, dat's why I came." He ground his teeth together and gave Kitty a look. His toe throbbed inside his metal boot and he wanted nothing more than to hold it right then and there.

Rogue's face smoothed into a begrudging—even shy—smile. "Ah got them, they were real pretty." She nibbled her bottom lip. "Ah actually came out here to borrow your blow dryer," she said to Kitty.

"Sure," she was beaming because of her cleverness, but Rogue was too flustered to notice.

"Thanks." She accepted the device and gave Remy one last shy smile before returning to the bathroom and closing the door behind her.

She looked at him and he looked at her.

"My middle name is 'The Matchmaker.'" she informed him haughtily.

"Oui," he snorted. "Jus' like y' nickname is 'de amazin' chef.'"

* * *

[1]: 'The butcher'. A german alias given to Sabretooth during one of his past rampages.

[2]: The Constrictor (real name: Frank Payne) was once a partner of Sabretooth's. Payne was formerly with S.H.I.E.L.D, but after a falling out between he and Nick Fury, he left to live a life of crime. He isn't a mutant, but he does specialize in fighting and espionage. (And for the sake of this fic: kidnapping, too. ;])

For more info. see: marvel . com (minus the spaces of course.)

**A/N: **This was a long time coming, but it couldn't be helped. For some reason this fic is just so hard for me to write. I'd much rather be writing brittle bones or SOG, but I love you guys and listened to your feedback on my poll. And deep down inside I love this fic. Just wish it was easier to write...

Expect more ROMY soon. I'm sure this thing'll flow much smoother once our favorite couple is more involved ;]

Feedback is encouraged.


	5. Time

_Xavier's School for Gifted Youngsters._

He fell in love with Kitty because it was so very uncomplicated and simple to do so. She was pretty, care-free, and never asked for more than what he gave. Her nativity and willingness to look for the good in a person's soul prevented her from seeing the blood on his hands and the selfish, guarded way in which he behaved.

She'd always gone out of her way to show him kindness. Even back when he'd been Magneto's right-hand man she'd managed small talk and smiles every time he stopped by the Brotherhood house. And somewhere in the blur of that particular year, checking up on Avalanche and the boys stopped being a chore and started being something to look forward to. All because of her eyes—her warm, trusting eyes. She'd seen something worth while in him that no one else—not even his own family—could seem to find.

They'd been so young back then, he and Kitty. It made him laugh to think about it now. Two years ago, she'd been completely devoted to her mentor's cause and he'd been bitter and forlorn—maybe even depressed—because of the gory and abrupt way things had ended between he and Bella. He'd been scorned and wanted to spread his misery to those around him. He made it his mission to capture as many hearts as he possibly could, and stay detached all the while.

But then he'd met Katherine Pryde: a girl too sweet and too honorable for him to break. She was small, but there was something solid and resilient holding her delicate frame together, and whatever it was he found irresistible. She ignored his crude humor and barbed words and just loved him. She held him up when he was too weak to stand on his own two feet, and it had felt like a lifetime when the day of Magneto's death tore the Brotherhood and Acolytes apart, and sometime during the confusion Kitty and Lance were no more. She'd _finally _been all his for the taking.

It was Kitty who brought him to Xavier's side in an attempt to help him feel accomplished, to feel like he was doing something good to make up for all the bad. He knew, like she didn't know, that the uniform and 'X' on his breast were nothing more than a joke, and maybe the professor had as well, but Remy hadn't been coarsened enough to dash her wishes. He played pretend and accepted the rules, regulations, and dangers of being an X-Man.

And then eight months of bliss, a white-haired mutant, and one misunderstanding later—everything he and Kitty had built was gone.

…

Remy gave up on the idea of sleep and abandoned the snarled sheets and blankets atop his bed for the comfort of a hot shower in his attached bathroom. His clothes were taken off and thrown to the floor along the way. He was too impatient for the soothing feel of hot water burning his skin to waste time with his usual cleanliness.

He waited to wash, and instead focused on loosening every one of his tense muscles. His head was already pounding with the start of a tension headache, it was the beginning of a bad day.

His room was still dark, meaning the sun hadn't even risen. He was a grumpy Cajun when his sleeping patterns were compromised in any way.

He began to cover his tanned skin with suds and glared down into the shower drain. He ignored his own advice and let his mind wander to Kitty anyway.

He'd had a dream about her late in the night, and he knew that was the reasoning behind his inability to purge her from his thoughts the entire morning. It'd been so long since he'd let himself think of what _could _have been, and he was starting to remember all the heartache and loneliness he'd first felt when things with Kitty were over and he'd had to see her with Joseph.

He gritted his teeth and pressed his forehead against the shower wall. The torrent of scalding water continued to cascade over his head and shoulders. Usually a shower could ease his insomnia and lull his mind into silence, but the current predicament he was in didn't seem to be alleviating.

Remy knew what he wanted, and he knew that it would make it easier to sleep. But it was an addiction he'd gone through hell to recover from, and he didn't know if he had the strength or will to give it up again.

He finished washing, fooling himself into believing that he was actually contemplating the two choices as he did so. But he knew as soon as he'd let himself start dreaming about Kitty that he would stop fighting and throw himself into temptation. There had never been a choice at all: He wanted, no, he _had _to see her.

He shut off the water and left the warmth of the enclosed space for the near freezing temperature of his bedroom. Summer had finally come to New York, but until the sun rose and brought its warmth, the weather felt just like it did in the Fall.

He caught his reflection in the mirror above the dresser and decided against shaving. He was too giddy for making himself look pretty. He would get to see her and maybe if he tried hard enough…she could be his again.

…

He veered to the right when he came to the top of the staircase and scanned his surroundings lazily to assure that he was the only one awake. Wolverine was undoubtedly in the Danger Room trying to pound out his own insomnia, but Remy still couldn't be too cautious. Getting caught sneaking to his ex's room—or anywhere _near _the girls' dorm for that matter—was not a good idea for a man with his reputation. Cyke was constantly looking for excuses to get him thrown out as it was, and Remy surely wasn't going to give him any more ammunition that he already had.

Tiptoeing down the hall of the girl's wing and slipping silently through her bedroom door was all too familiar. He still knew how to hold his finger in the crack to keep the hinges from squeaking, he knew to stay close to Kitty's bed while he walked to avoid the creaking floorboard in the center of the room.

He kneeled next to the slumbering girl and let his light-sensitive eyes adjust fully to the dark before risking the motion of brushing the wisps of straight hair off her cheek. He remembered why it'd been so hard to knock this habit: watching her sleep was lulling him into a peaceful state faster than alcohol or anything else he'd ever tried had.

There was soft jazz playing in the background, setting the scene in an even more romantic light. He wanted to kiss her so very badly; the cotton candy taste of her mouth was still fresh on his taste buds even after all this time, and he was craving the sweet feeling of having someone so delicate fit so snugly in his arms.

He watched the rise and fall of her chest and rested his hand gently on her open palm.

Remy missed Kitty—even more than he'd originally thought—and it was so palpable in that moment that the comforting warmth gathering strength in his heart was snuffed out into oblivion. As it turned out, seeing Kitty in this familiar state was having the opposite effect that he desired. It was making _not _having her that much harder to bear.

He needed to leave. "_Bonne nuit, Chat._" He tucked the blanket under her chin even more snugly, and took a quick look over at the other bed to make sure he hadn't accidentally woken Rogue.

He froze when he saw rumpled sheets and overturned pillows instead of a sleeping body.

There was a change in the jazzy melody being sung, and he realized that he'd never been listening to a radio at all. The angelic voice had been coming from the southern girl all along; if he squinted hard enough, he could just barely make out a feminine shape in the darkness outside. The translucent cloth of the billowing curtains seemed to wrap her in an ethereal glow, and he ignored his initial instinct to make his escape. Instead, he leaned against the wall behind him dreamily and let her sorrowful notes and deep rifts wash away his discomfort.

The girl had a pretty voice, and he found himself wanting to hear more. He strained his ears, but her singing was still muffled by the walls. He moved forward. And again. And again—until he was leaning against the doorframe right behind her shoulder.

She was leaning over the rail in a baggy sweater and furry slippers. Her hair fell in loose ringlets in between her shoulder blades, and mixed with the white in her bangs when the wind mingled them together. He noticed the goose bumps prickling on her bare legs and winced, wondering how she could stand the early-morning chill in so little clothing. Especially since she'd barely been away from the muggy south for less than a month. It'd taken him a full six months to be able to stop wearing a warm jacket under his trench coat whenever he went out.

It was after he failed to look away from her legs that Remy decided he ought to depart. But just as he tore his gaze away from the smoothness of her thighs and calves, the beautiful singing stopped and Rogue was staring right at him.

Her eyes were wide and her face was red with mortification. Her mouth began to open, but Remy reacted quickly enough to cover her mouth with one hand and restrain her flailing arms with the other, stopping her from releasing the scream.

He really did get himself into the most ridiculous situations.

"I know dis is weird," He grunted when an aimed elbow struck him in the stomach. "_mais _y' have to calm down. I can explain, okay?"

She became no calmer, and tried biting his fingers.

She managed to capture his thumb between her sharp teeth and bit down mercilessly. He cried out and she used the distraction to stomp on his foot and scramble to the other side of the balcony.

"What the _hell _are ya doin' here?" Rogue watched him warily as she moved the curtain with her toe and peeked into the room. "Does Kitty know you're here?"

There was a thick stretch of silence. Rogue waited expectantly for him to answer her, and Remy was trying to think up a good lie.

"_Non_." He held his throbbing hand and glared at the frazzled girl. "But if y' don' lower y' voice she's goin' to."

"Wait—" She stared critically at the bags beneath his eyes, the dark shadow on his face, and the state of his hair and clothing. "—so ya broke into our room for no reason?"

He could tell by the amused trace of a smile on her lips that she was too damn smart for her own good. He should have just left when he had the chance.

"Listen," he snapped, "it's none of y' business. Keep y' mouth shut an' I won't have a problem wit y'." With the warning hanging heavily in the air, Remy made to exit via the door, only to stop when she began to speak.

"Technically," She stood up and dusted herself off. "when ya came in the room _Ah _sleep in it became my business." Rogue watched him carefully, smiling even wider when she saw his neck go red.

But then her fun was done. His cool smirk was back in place and he was once again calm and in charge of the situation. "I just _had _to come in, Rogue. I was drawn by dat gorgeous singin' of yo's."

It was her turn to blush and become flustered. She'd sang in her church choir for years, but still considered singing without the company of other voices too personal and intimate to share with many others. Even her parents and Cody had seldom gotten to hear her. In fact, it was thinking of Cody and home that had made it impossible for her to sleep in the first place.

She wished she hadn't said anything. "Ah get your point," she mumbled. "Ah won't say anythin'."

The belle nibbled her lip in frustration. A particularly strong gust of wind came about and blew her hair every which way. It went through her thin sweatshirt and hit her legs, and she shivered. She wanted to go inside the room, but couldn't make it past Gambit. He was still standing in the exact same spot in the middle of the doorway; his gaze was on her—she felt its warmth through the cold.

"Why were y' up, anyway?" he finally asked.

She was instantly defensive. "Ah could ask ya the same darn thing. At least _Ah _was in my own room."

He pursed his lips and shrugged neatly. She had to wonder if he stood in the mirror and practiced all of his motions to perfect them in the real world. Every move and gesture he made was just so measured and flawless—normal people couldn't move that way.

She grew fed up with his searching gaze. "What're ya starin' at, huh?" Her arms went over her chest self-consciously.

"Can't help but t'ink dere's some reason y' couldn't sleep. Just wonderin' what is all."

Her mouth popped open and then shut. "Who said anythin' about not sleepin'? Maybe Ah'm an early riser—" She promptly cut off her rant and shook her head.

What would people think if they heard she and Remy arguing on the balcony before the sun was even in the sky? They'd think she was weird, that's what, and being a non-mutant in an all-mutant school was already enough to alienate her from the others.

"Ya should just go. Ah'm not sure why you're here, and Ah don't wanna know."

"Now dat's a shame." His hand rested on the crook of her arm and she looked up in surprise. He wasn't smiling, but his eyes were full of amusement. "We were havin' so much fun!"

Rogue rolled her eyes with a smile. "Seriously, though. Ya might wanna try to get some sleep. Ya look really rough this mornin'."

He ignored the comment. "I meant what I said, about de singin'."

She began to think that Remy wasn't as much of a jerk as she'd originally thought. "Thanks, Remy."

He gave her a wink before sidestepping her and going through the door. "Nice shorts by de way," he whispered over his shoulder.

"Sicko!" He was out the other door before she could recover and give him some more choice words.

...

As days at the mansion flew by and her insides festered more and more, Rogue felt herself—her _true_ self—fading rapidly. No one here knew how she used to be, how passionate and sassy she'd treated life in Mississippi, and most didn't want to know. The adults were too busy looking at her pityingly to really get to know her, and the kids steered clear all together. To them she was a human—someone to remain weary of. It made for a lonely seclusion that Rogue despised. Sitting alone and reading at all times of the day left much too many hours available for thinking and agonizing over memories she'd re-played in her head over and over again.

But if there was one thing still in tact since before the accident, it was her a pride. Though the solitude hurt, she wasn't going to let others see her pain, and she certainly wasn't going to tag along with Joseph and Kitty every time they went out—though they always seemed sincere in their want for her to accompany them. It was too embarrassing and pathetic. She'd rather continue to pretend that she was a stuck-up southern girl with more important things to do than introduce herself personally to the household.

She wondered if this was what her Mama went through: the pretending, the lying, the fake smiles and false humor she had to maintain to avoid the questions and suspicions of others.

Rogue had blurred memories of Mama standing in front of the mirror. She'd always look so sad and repressed when her red hair and midnight skin rippled away to be replaced with the features of a normal woman. She never had a harsh word to say and her southern lilt was sweet enough to charm any of the neighbors, but even as a child Rogue could see the restrained fervor hiding right behind her eyes. Her Mama was like a caged Tiger waiting to pounce, ready to bite off all the smiling heads of the bland people around her.

Rogue paused with her fingers on the last button of her dress. Had Mama been just as unhappy in Mississippi as she was here?

The thought was sickening. Because if true, it meant that Rogue had overlooked it for years. She'd been too wrapped in her own happiness and dramas to see through her mother's intricate veil of lies and facades.

She understood now, at least. She ached day in and day out for the calm, melodious working of the south. Things were too dizzying and fast-paced up here. She felt herself getting caught up in the whirlwind of this place and hated herself for it. She needed time, so why was she forcing herself towards being better? Why was she letting Kitty even _mention _the idea of her dating again? And with a scumbag like Gambit no less.

Thinking of him made a flush of anger burn her cheeks. He was brash and rude, not at all how she was used to southern men acting. He spoke aloud disgusting thoughts and treated her like some kind of sexual object.

He was not someone she would ever associate herself with.

And yet, the same rawness that repelled her attracted her as well. It'd been so long since she'd smiled like Gambit made her smile the day on the balcony, and even longer since someone had taken the time to break through her walls and strike up a conversation with her.

Even if the conversation was full of warnings and perverted innuendos.

Appearances aside, Rogue wanted a friend. Joseph was wonderful but he had Kitty; she often felt like a third wheel. She wanted someone who would overlook her lack of mutation and apparent icy disposition and get to know her. She wanted someone who wasn't afraid to give her a chance—consequences be damned, and Gambit with his devil-may-care attitude seemed like such a person.

And besides, he seemed to be alone, too.

_Vermont, Manchester._

After another week of listening to his plans she began to think. Up until this moment she'd somehow managed to ignore most or all of what he said. Outwardly, anyway. In reality she'd vacuumed up every particle of information he gave her and stored it away for later determining.

Now was that later date, because there she was: tired, weak, and distraught—it was only natural that her stubborn unwillingness to consider his proposal would start to chip away. Especially when the offer he made her sounded so wonderful. She'd get to see Rogue and hold her close, Erik would pull all stops to find Nick. They could be a _family _again.

Only Raven knew this not to be true. The moment Rogue's prophecy was seen by Irene fifteen years ago everything around them was changed beyond repair. Her daughter could never be safe. There would always be some power-hungry mongrel doing everything in his power to own Rogue, to break her and use her awesome abilities to his own advantage.

It was for this reason alone that Raven listened to what her old mentor had to say. He was right, at least doing things his way Raven could have Rogue back and support her every step of the way.

"Time is limited, my dear. Precious seconds are wasting away while you mull over a decision that you already know the answer to."

"Why are you in such a hurry, Erik?" she spat. "You've wanted to use my daughter since the day Irene saw that damn vision! Why can't you wait a little longer?"

He gave her a smile full of patience, and she hated it. "Because even as we speak other figures are making their move to apprehend your daughter. I'm giving you the opportunity to love her and give her the most happy, normal life anyone could hope for.

"However, when her mutation _does _activate—"

"—You make her one of your acolytes," she finished. Her golden eyes trained themselves on the flesh of his throat.

Instead of backing down he only chuckled. "Come now. A shrewd woman such as yourself cannot possibly deny that my offer is more than generous." Magneto hovered from his place by the window and landed softly next to his chained companion. "I care for you, Raven, truly I do." He patted her head fondly. "You were always my favorite pupil; I knew you'd go far."

"You're wrong, Erik." She was so exhausted. She could barely keep her head raised. "I obviously haven't gone far enough, I'm still in your clutches, aren't I?"

_"Tsk, tsk_. You were never this bullheaded before you started going with that Fury fellow, you know."

The mention of her missing husband sent Raven dangerously close to tears. She didn't cry when she was hurting, she fought back, and she needed to keep that mentality strong. She wasn't some weak, sniveling woman. She was Mystique, she would shoot a man dead between the eyes before even admitting to having a weakness.

"Rogue deserves the right to choose. Her life shouldn't be planned out for her." Her teeth gritted themselves together. "But what you're saying makes sense. If I have to compromise her free will to keep her safe, I'll do it."

The metal restraints on her wrists fell to the ground with a clank.

"Come, my dear. I'll show you to the restroom facilities and the kitchen."

She could hear the grin in his voice.

_Xavier's School for Gifted Youngsters. _

"You seem distracted today," he pointed out close to her ear.

Rogue jumped in surprise and tore her eyes away from across the table. "Just tired Ah guess." She fumbled with her plate in attempt to get his eyes off of her.

He didn't look away, nor was he convinced. "Didn't get enough sleep?"

She shrugged, but peeked at him from under her eyelashes. He seemed to know more than what he was saying, but there was no way he could've known about she and Remy's 'chat' this morning. Sure, the gossip mill around the school was notorious, but there was no one who could have even _started _the rumor...Unless of course Kitty had been awake the whole time and knew what was going on—

She gulped.

"Ah don't know what you're talkin' about," she said haughtily after taking a dainty bite of her eggs. "Ah got plenty of sleep last night, and this mornin', so if Kitty said somethin' Ah—"

"Whoa, whoa," he laughed and threw his hands up. "Calm down, Rogue. I was only asking."

She went red but feigned calm. She was always doing stupid, immature things to make a fool out of herself in front of Joseph. He was such a proper, worldly, tranquil individual, and she was the exact opposite. She was always overreacting and roller coasting through emotions like they were nothing.

"Sorry, Joe. Today's—" She looked up and caught Gambit staring at her again.

He smiled but she pretended not to notice. The nightmare she'd had about Cody the night before was still too fresh in her mind for flirting—no matter how harmless.

"—been a weird day."

...

Rogue loved Saturdays. Parties, sports, the mall, movies, and all of the other teenaged activities available emptied the mansion of most of its occupants and allowed peaceful quiet to seep in. She could wake up knowing she wouldn't have to fight her way to the breakfast platter or fall victim to a migraine because of all the noise. The rec room was free and the games and movies were up for grabs.

She spent her Saturday afternoons in the company of Joseph—a fellow recluse—and a fresh book in her hand. They sat on the hill closest to the lake and gazed down at the sparkling water when it was cool enough, but when the heat became too much they escaped to the shade of the patio and continued their conversations and reading sessions.

The sun was getting steadily hotter with each passing day, and Rogue could smell Summer in the breeze and graze.

Rogue knew that Joseph preferred the quiet and the comfort literature gave him. He'd confided in her that he sometimes felt like a downer to Kitty—who was constantly hanging with friends and shopping at the mall—because he stayed home on the weekends and was too shy to make very many friends.

"That's why I like you so much," he said once, "You're just so easy to talk with."

Rogue, who had no friends besides Joseph and Kitty, was grateful for the comment. She, too felt like a party-pooper at times. She was always so sad and quiet compared to the other children, and they didn't understand why. They expected her to smile, laugh, and make friends like they did, but she couldn't, not now anyway. Once, she'd been popular around school and a favorite of all the parents and teachers.

But that was then. She was hurting inside, and she'd only allowed this true pain to be shown to Joseph. He understood what it was like to have next to no one. His mother and sister were dead, though he swore on his life he felt like she was out there somewhere, and his father and younger brother were involved in things he couldn't bring himself to participate in.

The resemblance between her friend and almost-captor was chilling at times, but there was a warmth and caring in Joseph that Magneto either didn't have, or hid well.

"Sometimes Ah wonder if things would be easier if Ah could've gone to his funeral." She laid on the prickly grass with the sun in her eyes and her arms behind her head. "Like closure, ya know?"

She looked up, blocking the sun with her hand, and saw that his fingers were tapping on the blanket beneath them. She'd been around him often enough to know this meant he was thinking.

"You could go to a thousand funerals and always be sad," he began softly. The bright light shone through his hair and made it seem colorless. "Gaining closure means accepting what happened." His blue eyes gazed down at her sadly. "And you haven't done that yet, Rogue."

Tears pricked her eyes; she turned away from him stubbornly. "Ah've been tryin', ya know Ah have!"

"I know." He smiled and took her hand in his. "But you've got to give yourself time. Don't push it."

She faced him with a watery smile. She'd been thinking the very same thing earlier in the day. Time, she just needed time—eventually she would feel better, even though right now it seemed as though her sorrow was an endless black tunnel.

She may not have had many friends, but the couple she did were incredible. "Ah know you're right, but it's so hard! Cody's been in my life every day for all these years and we've never been apart. Then outta nowhere..." She couldn't even think of his death. "If Ah had my parents with me this would be so much easier."

Joseph nodded before putting his book to the side and laying next to her. "I can empathize with you on _that _one. Terrorist or not, I still miss my Dad."

Rogue studied him curiously. He didn't discuss his father or brother very much, but when he did she found herself hanging on every word. Magneto was sort of a nightmare of hers, but she wanted to know more about him nonetheless.

"But we have to grow up and learn to support ourselves. It sucks, but what else can we do?"

They would keep going, that's what they'd do. Rogue had her parents by her side her whole life, but she knew she could make it. She would survive these pitfalls and fight to keep her head above water, and maybe someday she'd see her loved ones again.

"My Mama always used to say tomorrow is another day, and that no matter what we had to live to see it through." She buried her face in the comforting arm Joseph offered, and realized she was crying.

"You're mom sounds like a very intelligent woman."

Rogue wept for a long time. And after the tears ceased to fall she blushingly apologized for soaking Joseph's shirt—laughing all the while. The dense gravity in her chest seemed to suffocate her less.

* * *

**Randirogue **deserves a lot of credit for this chapter. It was her awesome, helpful review and patience that helped me work out some of the knots this fic is riddled with. Helping my brain jumpstart by providing lines such as _'Like Mama at church...' _made it possible for me to work this out and get it posted. Read her review for chapter four if you have the time—her dedication is astounding!

Didn't spend a _whole _lot of time on editing this time; I figured you guys would want this chapter sooner rather than later. However, if there's anything too jarring let me know and I'll fix it right away!

Feedback is encouraged.


	6. Mystique

_Airport terminal. Manchester, Vermont._

She hated Erik because he knew her so well. He'd known she would come with him that day by the dumpster, and he knew now that when he gave her the ticket and gave her directions to meet him in New York that she would not run away. He knew that his offer was too good for refusal. She was a practical woman—he'd always said that was one of her _better _qualities—and knew that his way was the best way, no, the _only _way. She would have liked to say she'd put up more of a fight, but time was not on their side and the longer she weighed her options the more likely it was for Rogue to wind up in the clutches of another. And Erik knew that. There were moments when she couldn't help but wonder if Erik knew _everything_.

She wondered, however, if Erik had foreseen this: the throbbing of her heart, the lightness of her head, the unquestioned belief that the girl in front of her was Rogue—even though her brain screamed that it wasn't, couldn't be.

Mystique forced herself to turn away, to gather the floating, hopeful pieces of her wandering mind back together in a tight knot. She had a mission to complete. There was a set list of things she needed to accomplish, and the reward for her efforts would be her daughter. Her daughter.

She looked back, unable to shake the feeling.

The girl was wearing a dress, 1950-esque, the kind of dress Rogue was always buying. She had the heelless slippers to match. Rogue's delicate feet had always looked so precious in those. She recalled her swirling around on the wooden floors of their home in Mississippi, of her rich laughter filling the kitchen and bringing light with it.

But it wasn't her. It wasn't her. It _couldn't _be her.

But then Mystique found herself weaving through bodies to the front of the crowd. She could see the white fabric of the girl's dress like a lonely beacon in the sea of bodies. Her heart was screaming 'faster, faster' with every uneven beat. If she could just see the girl's face then maybe she could let go. Maybe she could convince herself that it wasn't her, couldn't be her. Her Rogue was far away with people she didn't know. Alone.

Silently she asked herself what she was doing, why she was putting herself through this and letting her eyes see something that was not, _could _not, be there. Where was her practicality? Why was she finding it so difficult to ground herself in cold reality?

A heavyset woman blocked her path. Mystique brushed passed. Her ears filtered out the woman's indignant complaints.

If she and Nick had told Rogue about the dangers she would face, about the prophecy, and about the people who wanted her as nothing more than a weapon—things might have been different. Rogue would've never run away. She would've understood why they had to leave everything they knew behind in the dust. She would be where she belonged: in the arms of her mother.

Mystique finally broke through the crowd. Her luggage was somewhere behind her, abandoned. The bags had been too heavy and cumbersome for her to carry with. She had to keep moving fast, to see if her hopes were real. _They aren't real. She's gone._ The girl was just up ahead, waiting patiently for the line to proceed further.

She took a step forward, and then another. Her feet kept moving even though she knew, she _knew_, that it wasn't her princess, her daughter, her Rogue.

She reached the girl and she ran her fingertips along the ruche hem of her dress. She felt the frilled fabric between her fingers and lost herself in the feel of it. She'd always wondered why her daughter was so old-fashioned in her style and manner. It was as if Rogue had been on this earth before; like she saw everything with those emerald eyes and had already seen it, already knew what would happen next.

The girl turned around, startled, and even though Mystique had _known _it wasn't _her _girl, _her _vintage princess, _her _daughter—it still hurt. It hurt like shrapnel lodged in the leg and a bullet through the shoulder.

"Ma'am?" The girl was polite, but shuffled away all the same. She obviously thought Mystique was insane.

And maybe she was.

Mystique wanted to weep: an urge she hadn't had so strongly in years. She wanted to drop to the ground right then and there and abandon the blonde hair and brown eyes. She wanted to reveal her true self to the entire airport and ask 'why?'. Why had it been so easy for the girl's hazel eyes to lighten to green? For her russet curls to darken to chestnut? For her facial features to morph and shift into those of Rogue's?

She wanted to leave this all behind, to live her dream of finding Rogue and taking her away, away to a place she'd wandered in the days when Erik's embrace was the only one she knew. When she hadn't known she had a choice and had followed him to the ends of the earth to far off places where people were uneducated but happy. Places where prophecies and mutants were unknown. A safe oasis where she could keep Rogue innocent forever.

But she couldn't, and she didn't. She rearranged her face into a mask of unfeeling stone. She took her hand away calmly and saw the girl for what she was: a nobody. "I'm sorry. Thought you were someone else."

She pushed Raven the Mother aside and thought, felt, and breathed Mystique: the hardened criminal, the woman who let logic guide her—not emotion, not love.

She had a flight to catch.

_Xavier's School for Gifted Youngsters._

Rogue didn't like Jean Grey. Not because she was mean or unfriendly, but because she was the exact opposite. She was _too _nice, _too _friendly, and _too _perfect in each and every way possible to be real. She was so eager to please and comfort that she seemed fake to the belle. Begrudgingly, Rogue accepted that Kitty _was _all of those things—from the bottom of her earnest heart. Rogue had never met anyone like her, anyone so willing to look for the good in someone instead of the bad. She got along with 'villain' and 'hero' alike, and treated them with nonexistent difference.

T'was not so with Jean, who seemed to show kindness for the benefit of her own reputation. She was warm and heartfelt because it furthered her own intentions. The way she dangled herself in front of Scott was cruel. She toyed with his emotions because she could, because it felt good and powerful to do so. Jean had to of known how Scott felt about her, how much he raged after seeing her with Duncan: she was an empath. Emotions made themselves known to her in acute detail. She could sense the changes in the way a person was feeling in every degree. She sensed the jealousy of Scott, the envy of girls, the attraction from boys—and she bathed in it.

Rogue saw all of this with her perceptive eyes and stayed away. She avoided Jean's attempts at conversation. The empath gave her a bad feeling in the pit of her stomach. She reminded Rogue of goody-two-shoes Peggy Mae Weathers back home. The girl would hug you close and stab you in the back in the same motion.

So when Rogue opened her door to reveal the smiling red-head, her readied smile went stale. She was tempted to re-close the door in her face.

"Morning!" She glanced inside the room pointedly and with a silent grumble, Rogue let her pass by. "Kitty and I are going to the mall for some Summer clothes." Her turquoise eyes were drinking the room in nosily. They stopped on a framed photo of she and Cody on the dresser, and Rogue stiffened.

The picture was on display but it was still personal. She knew Jean pitied her for what happened that day and if there was one thing Rogue hated—it was pity. A close second was being seen as weak, and she surely hadn't been standing tall at the time.

She thought of her plans with Joseph and sighed gratefully. "Sorry, Jean, but Ah've got plans. Joseph an' Ah—"

"Joseph?" Her gaze sharpened, and despite her supposed morals, Rogue felt a tickling against her temple.

It was no use, as Jean soon discovered, because Mama had taught her how to build mental blocks long ago.

"You sure spend a lot of time with him," she said after giving up on the mental break and enter.

Rogue bristled. It was obvious what Jean was trying to get at—honeyed tone or not. "And? Is it a crime for me to hang out with friends?"

The false smile was back. Rogue mused that Jean's cheeks must be sore every night from all the face-shattering grinning she did.

"Of course not, silly!" Her hand rested on Rogue's wrist. "Which is why it makes perfect sense for you to come with me and Kitty to the mall."

_I can keep an eye on you that way._

"Excuse me?" Rogue snapped, snatching her hand away from Jean's burning hold. "Ah don't need _anybody _'keepin' an eye' on me, thanks very much."

Jean's eyes bulged and she distanced herself from the belle in a swift, jerking motion. Rogue winced and brought her wrist close. It burned where Jean's hand had been. She felt something swirling around inside of her and confused it with anger or the residue from Jean's telepathic message.

"How did you..." Her throat visibly tightened and she pushed harder against Rogue's shields. "How did you do that?"

_I've seen the way you look at him._

Rogue made to retort, but stopped herself. Jean was still staring at her warily; her lips hadn't moved any further. Rogue had to assume that it was a projection, but there was no way Jean was powerful enough to even send thoughts through the walls of her mind. She remembered the days, weeks, and months of grueling training Mama had put her through to make her mind air-tight. She'd never understood why, but was grateful for it now.

"What're ya talkin' about?" Her temples were throbbing yet again. All of this nonsense was giving her a headache.

"Don't play at being coy." She chanced a foot forward, her face as red as her hair. "Gambit said he saw your friend talking through you, he thought you were possessed, but it makes sense now. You're a telepath!"

Rogue had stopped paying close attention after the mention of Cody and that day: thinking of what happened in too much detail left her in a morose state for days and days. If she blocked out the blood and the death it was easier to sleep at night.

She'd passed out after Cody had been killed, and that was why she couldn't remember much from that day. She wasn't a mutant, she wasn't one of them. Jean didn't want to admit to projecting her thoughts in her head and going against her 'code of honor,' that was it.

"You've got to tell the professor—"

"Rogue?" Kitty popped into the room, her smile soon fading after noting the tenseness of her two friends. "Jean and I were, like, heading to the mall—"

"Jean was just askin' me if Ah'd like to go." She stared right back at the red head and felt something like a pull beginning to form between them.

"Well? Did you want to come?"

Her wrist was tingling, sending small sparks and flashes of moving pictures right to her brain.

"You hardly _ever _go out, you know," Kitty went on, "it's, like, abnormal."

Rogue dragged her attention to the concerned brunette as if just waking. "Ah—sure. Sure."

Kitty made her presence known through yelps and cheers, Jean's infamous fury rose as did her curiosity, and Rogue tried to shake off the feeling that the winds were carrying her away from reality.

…

That one touch awoke something within her. She felt Cody keenly, as if he was right there next to her. She could smell the sweet hay that was always clinging to his clothes, she felt his football-roughened hands, she heard his southern twang in her ear. She'd ached for him over the past month, but having him so close wasn't pleasant. It felt like he was growing larger and larger, crowding her out of her own senses.

And there was something else, too, something like fire tingling and shooting across the expanse of her innards. Something that she'd never known until Jean had grabbed her wrist—bare skin on bare skin.

She shook her head and pressed the automatic window control. The wind blew right in and cooled her down. After a few moments of deep breathing she convinced herself that things were okay. She was tired, that was all. And the headaches hadn't been getting any better. She just needed to try and have a good time. She needed to try and let herself be the girl she used to be, the Rogue that brushed off heartaches and kept marching forth.

Of course, she'd never known heartache like this back home, but the principal was the same.

Rogue glanced to the front seat and saw Jean driving rigidly. It was obvious from her white knuckles and pressed lips that the occurrence back at the mansion had spooked her as well. She somehow knew that the absent jitter of Jean's knee meant she was thinking of something unpleasant.

Oh well. She deserved it for being such a judgmental snoop. And that crap about her being a telepath was probably born of jealousy. Mutants had it hard, it was no surprise that some of them wanted to be normal humans. In fact, the distance most of the students kept between themselves and her was probably due to that reasoning.

Kitty, who had been trying to carry on a conversation for the entire ride, finally gave up and turned on the radio instead.

"I love this song!" She increased the volume.

Both Rogue and Jean winced at the wailing, screeching noises coming from the pop singer's mouth, but neither made any comment. Music, no matter how bad and tuneless, was still better than the awkward, heavy silence.

Kitty bopped her head and shimmied her shoulders until they reached the Bayville Mall parking lot. She became serious then, and turned the radio completely off. "Okay, guys, keep you're eyes peeled for a parking spot!" Her brown eyes were sparking with excitement and her hands were fidgeting on her lap.

Rogue decided then and there that Kitty may have had a problem with shopping.

They eventually pulled into a spot near the very back, and walked from there. Jean stayed to the left and Rogue kept herself to the right. Kitty chatted amiably between them, aware of the uncomfortable atmosphere around the three of them, but at a total loss to stop it. So she talked and talked and talked to make up for the lack of effort on their part.

Rogue found herself alone soon after entering the enormous facility. Jean said something about a phone call and went to find a quiet place. Kitty's attention was caught by a flashing 'BIG SALE' sign, and though Kitty's hand grabbed hers, the belle soon lost the petite girl in the crowd.

She didn't mind, though. With the two girls gone she could focus less on maintaining her fake contentment and more on easing her building migraine. The milling throngs of people around her were not helping in the slightest, and her first goal was to make her way back outside—right after she bought herself a cool drink from the food court.

She squeezed her way in between tables and dug a couple dollar bills and some change from the back pocket of her shorts. A few of the quarters slipped from her hand and rolled on the floor; she cursed as she bent to pick them up.

Her hand touched someone else's as she reached for the very last coin, and her eyes snapped up quickly. "Oh, Ah'm sorry—" She blushed at the pair of black eyes and deep dimples.

He smiled, stood, and handed her the change. "Don't worry about it, I'm always dropping stuff myself."

Her mouth opened, but the clever response she'd formulated in her mind was turned to complete mush in the wake of his smile. "Um, Ah, thanks." She shoved the money in her satchel and made to leave the cute guy and his distracting smile.

"Wait!" He ran in front of her and she stopped.

Her gaze bored into the ground. She prayed that a bolt of lightning would appear from the heavens and strike her dead, preventing her from embarrassing herself any further.

Nothing happened. "I'm John." He held out his hand, but dropped it when she failed to do the same. "What's your name?"

Her name? "My name?" Yeah, your name, idiot. Ya know: that thing people call you when they want to get your attention? "Oh!" Her face went up in flames, and her brain seemed to jumpstart itself. "Rogue," she stammered, and thrust her shaking hand into his. "It's Rogue."

He raised his eyebrow. "That's…unique."

Again she wished for the lord almighty to take her off the face of the earth, and again she remained red-faced in front of the cute guy.

"Listen," he said, shoving his hands in his pockets with a nervous grin. "You must thing I'm some kind of creep…but would you wanna get an ice cream cone or something?"

She swallowed and thought of Cody, of the heavy guilt that would no doubt hit her when she dreamed about him later on in the night. She glanced towards the doors, to the bright sky and parking lot and thought of freedom. And then she felt the warm knot in her stomach and thought about how very lonely she'd become in a school full of mutants.

"Sure." She was proud of herself for producing a word without crashing and burning.

His grin brightened, and again she noticed his dimples and curly dark hair. "Great!" His hand rested on the small of her back; she did her best not to make it obvious when she shied away.

They stood in the line and went through the normal first time pleasantries. She learned that he was a senior at Bayville High and had moved to New York at the beginning of the month. He played football and loved working with mechanics. He had a sister named Kara and an uncle they called 'Vic.'

She kept her side of the conversation short and sweet. He'd known by her accent that she wasn't a native, and she told him she too had recently moved to the Big Apple, all the while trying not to sound like the ignorant southern girl she was. She told him she was staying at a boarding school for a while, and that her parents traveled a lot. He didn't ask for more information than she revealed, and she was glad for it.

"What'll you have?" The cashier was an unhappy teen in a ridiculous, multi-colored uniform. Rogue felt sorry for him.

"I'll have a chocolate cone with sprinkles."

"And Ah'll just have plain vanilla." She moved to retrieve her money, but felt his hand on hers once more.

"My treat," he explained at her questioning gaze. "I sort of dragged you here anyways, right?" He gave her a wink and paid the teen.

"Thanks," she murmured when he handed her the frozen treat.

He found out soon after that this was her first trip to the Bayville Mall, and promptly offered to give her the grand tour. Their conversation continued as he pointed out the different shops and restaurants. He liked the band on the t-shirt she was wearing and they spent a half-hour alone discussing their best albums and greatest singles.

Sometimes while he lost himself completely in their conversation—she thought it was cute the way he used his hands to emphasis points—she would sneak a peek at him and question herself. On one hand: she felt Cody's soul pressing harder and harder against her ribcage. _Don't forget about me. _he whispered, and she wondered if she was losing her mind. On the other hand: there was no doubt whatsoever as to how much she loved and missed her childhood friend. She'd kept herself locked up tight in a corner for so long—it felt _nice _to talk with a cute boy who seemed interested in her. It was simple, it was fun, it took away some of the dread iced over her heart and made her feel like a normal, teenage girl again.

She would never forget Cody—how could she? But how long would she immerse herself in her pain? How long would it be before it was okay to let herself laugh again?

Rogue put a stop to that train if thought, deciding that it was all around too serious and morbid for her current situation. The mall was no place for soul searching, and certainly not worth doing for a boy she'd just met and would probably never even see again. She would let herself have fun now, and if she paid for it later on then so be it.

_Flight 111._

The lights below increased in the thousands, and she knew the plane was now over her destination. It seemed like she'd just boarded the plane only minutes before, probably because she'd made herself sleep on the way. Erik was a trying person to deal with, and she needed her mind sharp if she was going to outwit him and learn his plan in any way she could.

The seatbelt signal flashed, then glowed, and the pilot's happy voice went over the intercom—telling the passengers that they'd be landing at the airport in a few minutes time. He went on to remind them of the seatbelt light and warned them against any type of movement. Mystique ignored the safety precaution and left her safety belt dangling by her side. She barely waited for touchdown before gathering her things up above.

"Excuse me, Ma'am, but—"

She bared her teeth and strutted by the flustered flight attendant. She hated air travel with a passion and Erik knew that. She assumed he tried to make up for the fact by providing her with a first class ticket, but that did nothing to lift her dark mood. She would need a lot more alcohol for her deep frown to fade.

…

There was a black vehicle waiting for her outside of the airport. A distinguished looking man picked her out from the crowd and gave her a nod. She had no idea how he knew it was her, her appearance had been chosen completely at random.

He took her things and opened the shiny door for her. She mumbled some sort of gratitude before slipping in the car and letting herself collapse onto the cool leather. Her feet ached, her head felt as if it was going to split in two, and there was something weighing down her stomach and making it impossible for her to think of anything else but her missing family.

Mystique let her skin shift to its original form, and laid her head back on the headrest. Despite her exhaustion she knew she would not be able to sleep that night.

The mobile phone Erik had provided her buzzed against her thigh and she retrieved it from her pocket.

"Yes?"

"My dear," she found his voice soothing even after all of this time. "You don't sound very eager to see me."

"I'm not." The outrageously lit buildings twinkled at her even through the tinted windows of the car. Awesome amounts of civilians were packed onto the narrow sidewalks, some stragglers spilling onto the street.

It'd been a long time since she'd been in the city where she got her start. There was a peculiar kind of history between she and New York. There were good moments and bad moments equally: from Erik finding her to getting picked up by a pimp as a child. This city gave her strength and brutality. It reminded her that she had to be as hard as the concrete skyscrapers and the brick apartments.

"Don't be so impassive. I'm calling to make sure all of your accommodations are to your liking."

"I haven't reached the hotel yet." The car came to a stop at a red light and she watched as a mother and daughter hurried hand-in-hand across the crosswalk. "I'll let you know when I do."

She knew he was smiling on the other end of the line. "Perhaps I could come and see to your comfort myself?

"Goodnight, Erik."

She shoved the phone in her pocket quickly. The light went green and the ride continued on in the sea of vehicles and honking horns. Try as she might, she could not find the mother and daughter again among the chaos.

She didn't understand why that bothered her so much.

_Bayville Mall._

They found her an hour later in a hat shop. She and John had just tried on a pair of ridiculous violet and cheetah print hats when Kitty and Jean called her name.

Rogue turned around, and the grin fell from her lips. Her two friends were not alone, and for some reason the amusement on Remy's face was unnerving. She quickly swiped the hat off of her head and tried not to go red at their mixed facial expressions.

"There you are," Kitty said, focusing more on John than the person she was talking to. "We were looking, like, everywhere."

John didn't bother to remove his hat. "Are these your friends?"

"I'm Kitty." She shook his hand and gave Rogue a look that promised later interrogation. "That's Jean and her boyfriend Duncan, and over there is Remy and his girlfriend Tiffany."

Rogue had never seen the infamous Tiffany before, but the gossip was true: She was beautiful. Perfect blonde hair rested on her shoulders and Barbie-blue eyes were framed in smoky eyeshadow. She had the kind of body girls starved themselves for—except with breasts large enough to put a Victoria's Secret model to shame. Rogue wasn't surprised, though she was awed and a little bit intimidated, Remy would have only the most gorgeous of girls on his arm.

"Duncan and Jean have plans," Kitty was still trying to visibly search through Rogue's mind and get the information she wanted. "But if you don't want to leave now we can pick you up later—"

Rogue went red under the bored gaze of Tiffany. It felt like every _pop _of the blonde's gum was a clock ticking away.

"I should probably get going anyways," John said. "I've got work in a couple hours."

Rogue turned to him, grateful that he'd made it so she wouldn't have to come up with the goodbye. "Ah had a lot of fun today."

She turned to Kitty and the others pointedly, and all at once they began chatting and pretending to be focused on anything other than what they really were.

"I did, too." He was close enough that she could see the lighter brown in his eyes. "Could we hang out again some time?"

Her mouth opened, then shut. It wasn't a difficult question by any means, but her tongue seemed to curl in on itself.

"She'd love to!" Kitty wedged herself between the two teens. "Just get out your phone and I'll give you her number, kay?"

And Rogue died of absolute humiliation as Remy threw his head back laughing, Duncan grunted impatiently, and Kitty did what she was too cowardly to do.

John pulled her into a hug before she could react, and then disappeared with a wink. Not long after that Kitty was attacking her with questions.

"Did he, like, ask you out or something?"

"Ah just met him, Kitty—"

"He _was _pretty cute." It sounded like Jean was trying to move on from their earlier altercation. "Do you plan on hooking up with him sometime?"

She was speechless once more. Did they truly understand what they were asking? Had they forgotten all about her last boyfriend?

"Stop harassin' de _fille_!" Remy held Tiffany's shopping bags on one arm and the other went around Rogue's shoulders. "Rogue's not interested in other _hommes _right now…"

She cracked a grateful smile. Finally, someone who understood her hesitation.

"…'cause she's obviously in love wit me."

Rogue glared at him and saw Tiffany stiffen from the corner of her eye. She speedily unwound herself from the Cajun's hold and snuck a peek behind her. Tiffany was looking her up and down, but seemingly finding no threat in her frayed shorts, baggy shirt, and wild curls, went back to checking her phone messages.

Rogue was suddenly a bit self-conscious. She wasn't vying for Remy's attention by any means, but she felt a bit sore at being so obviously dismissed.

Remy, who'd seen the entire interaction with his observant eyes, gave his girlfriend a reproachful scowl that she did not see. He moved closer to the frowning Rogue. "Y' like dat boy, _chère_?"

She shrugged stiffly. She was still too confused herself to come up with an answer to someone else's question. "He's nice, but that's all."

He returned his arm to her shoulders. "Take y' time. No pressure."

Her mouth popped open and her head whipped up to stare at him. His lips were twisted into a smirk and his eyes flared knowingly.

She smiled, feeling herself grow more and more at ease with his touch. He wasn't so bad when he wasn't acting like an arrogant jerk. "Thanks, swamp rat," she whispered.

His eyebrows shot up. "'Swamp rat'?"

…

Duncan convinced Jean to come along with him to a movie—it wasn't hard, Jean seemed glued to her jerk of a boyfriend. Kitty offered to drive Jean's car home, but everyone's eyes met one another's and there were awkward coughs all around. Rogue deduced that this meant Kitty was not a very good driver.

"Um," Jean stuttered, "Maybe I could just drive home and meet you at the institute—"

"Come on!" Kitty pouted and tugged on Jean's arm. "I know I haven't had, like, the _greatest _driving history, but the mansion is, like, five minutes away!"

"A lot can happen in five minutes wit y', _chat_." Remy mumbled, eliciting a snobbish chuckle from Tiffany.

"Is that an offer?" Jean smiled, batting her eyelashes coaxingly.

Remy released an overdramatic sigh and held out his hands. "I can't say _non _to a pretty girl in distress.

Tiffany was quick to interject. Her phone remained in her hand, however, as if it was welded to her hand. "But we had plans for tonight, remember?" Her thin arms went across her chest.

Rogue saw Remy trying his hardest to suppress an eye roll. "Of course I remember, Tiff. How could I ever forget? We can meet up later, _non_?"

He didn't wait for an answer. Jean and Duncan said their goodbyes—well, Jean did most of the talking, Duncan seemed uncomfortable with even being around them—Tiffany marked her territory by grabbing Remy by the back of the neck and shoving her tongue down his throat right there in front of Rogue and Kitty.

They exchanged glances; Rogue's stomach churned. "We'll go wait by the car."

…

He slipped on his shades and scrounged around in his pockets for his keys.

"Well?"

He shoved the key into the lock, feigning nonchalance. It would do no good for the older man to know he'd been caught unawares.

Flex turned in the direction the voice had come from, and smirked at the man he knew only as 'Constrictor'. "Like taking candy from a baby. I'll get her to you in no time."

* * *

Chapter 3 of SoG was supposed to be posted a while back, but after re-reading it I had to make some changes. Things are moving along nicely with this fic, and I feel that I'm at a much better standing with TIAD than I was a chapter or two ago.

Hope you all enjoyed!

Feedback encouraged :]


	7. Appearances

_Xavier's School for Gifted Youngsters._

There was something about his outwardly attentive face and probing questions that loosened the muzzle on her usually quiet mouth and caused her to spill her guts and babble on and on. His 'oh's' and 'no way's' were placed in perfect places and pushed her to reveal even more. Somewhere in her stomach was a feeling of shock. She realized, remotely, that she was opening herself up to a practical stranger, telling him more than she'd even told Joseph.

He was warmth and she was always so cold these days. He melted the ice around her frame and the result was the releasing of secrets that she'd been keeping inside for far too long.

The days during she and Cody's road trip was something she kept close to her heart and her heart alone, but she told Remy with such ease that it somewhat startled her. She had no way of ensuring that he wouldn't tell anyone, but she couldn't stop. There was just too much to keep locked away and the dam across her mouth had already broken—there was no stopping it.

So, when she finished some forty-five minutes later, she felt embarrassed, if not relieved and tired. Tears had burned the back of her eyes sometime during the tale but crying in front of him—again—was not something she was willing to do.

She sighed and sat forward in her seat, questioning her behavior and wondering what it was about this man that made her so unlike herself.

"God, it's almost been an hour." She winced and moved to open the door. "Why didn't ya stop me?"

His hand touched hers and when she turned to him he was smiling. "'Cause dat was pretty interestin'. Explains a lot, too."

Rogue's brow furrowed. "What do ya mean by that?"

Remy shrugged, smirk still in place. "Just means dat you've been kind of a mystery to me since y' got here, an' now I understand why y' do some of de t'ings y' do."

Hell or high water would not have been able to tear Rogue away from that car after he said something so sneering and elusive, and little did she know that that was exactly what the Cajun had planned.

"What things?" she demanded, feeling less grateful for his time and more annoyed with his amused smirk and cutting eyes.

"Oh, y' know…t'ings. Why y' so sad all de time, why y' look at Joseph de way y' do—stuff like dat."

She blushed up to her hairline. "Ah—What're ya talkin' about? Joseph is my good friend and Ah, well Ah don't understand what he has to do with this anyway!"

"Oh, _mais _he does. Y' still mournin' for dat boy—and dat's why y' haven't realized how y' feel 'bout him yet. Y' confused. Part of y' wants to keep dreamin' of Cody, an' part of y' wants to dream 'bout Joe—which adds another layer to it. Bein' the religious kinda _fille _y' are, de thought of wantin' somebody else's man just tears y' apart inside." Remy leaned back in his seat, noticing Rogue's sputtering but choosing to ignore it. He was obviously quite pleased with himself.

Rogue couldn't even admit those things to herself, so hearing an outsider—Gambit no less—say them made for the start of a rage. "You're crazy! Ya don't know any of that!" Her hands shook and she wanted to slap him. Except this time it would be harder than the last. She'd teach him to talk to her so coarsely! "Ah wasn't aware ya had a High School diploma, much less a degree in psychiatrics!"

He ignored the insult smoothly. "Y' right, I _didn't _know any of dat—_mais _y' reaction just proved it all." He turned flaming red eyes on her. "But don' t'ink I t'ink any less of y'. Gettin' Joseph away from Kitty would benefit _moi _immensely."

Her mouth flopped open and closed and there were so many things she wanted to call him but the names wouldn't come to her mind. "Ah knew it! Ah knew there was somethin' between ya two!"

"Congratulations," he drawled.

She saw the corner of his mouth pull down and knew she had hit a sore spot. "An' she's with Joseph, an' that's why you're always so mean to him! Because she doesn't—"

His mild amusement morphed into fury for a moment before changing into cool indifference. "Well, well. Maybe y' are smarter dan y' look."

"Oh, ya stupid—"

"Dis could work out for both of us, y' know." He pursed his lips and looked out of the window, his mind obviously working rapidly. "I want Kitty an' y' want Joseph—"

"Ah do not!"

"—an' I see no reason why we shouldn't help each other out, _non_?" He saw her disbelief and her absolute disgust.

He didn't mind it. For him, looking at every situation and discovering the best outcome for himself was second nature. He'd seen the girl mooning over Joseph over time but he'd kept the information stored away for later. Now was the time to reap the benefits of his watchful, observant eye. At first he'd wanted nothing more than to use this girl like he'd used so many others—but now it seemed his little rogue could help achieve much more than just temporary satisfaction.

"You're awful," she murmured. "You're selfish and cruel and—and Ah can't believe Kitty even liked ya in the first place!"

Remy shrugged, completely uncaring of what she said. "At least I'm a realist. Y' too scared an' worried what people will think to even admit to yourself that y' want him, _mais _I'm not. I see what I want and I take it—an' Kitty is what I want."

Her heart was pounding faster and faster and a horrible realization was filling her up. "So then—so then all this: listenin' to me talk, pretendin' ya cared, was all just for this? So that ya could try and convince me to go along with your stupid plan?" She'd gotten louder and louder over the course of her rant, and the small car was ringing from her voice.

"_Chere, _of course I cared 'bout what y' had to say! It just happened that what y' said got me t'inkin'. Is dat so bad?"

"Ah thought ya were nice," she bit out. "Ah thought that we could move on from that first day and try to be civil with each other—"

He was laughing at the memory of that 'first day.'

"—but Ah see now that you're just as nasty and awful as ya were then!" Rogue shoved open the car door and left with a flurry. She stomped her way through the garage, her heavy footsteps echoing around her.

And to think, she'd told him so many things! She'd given away precious information and he didn't even care! How had she let herself be fooled by his charming smile and smooth voice? How had she gotten so comfortable with him?

She didn't even try to calm herself before entering the mansion—feeling anger, feeling _anything _other than depression, felt nice in a way—and walked into the kitchen still fuming. Ororo, who, like the others, saw only the polite, soft-spoken Rogue, had never seen the girl's face full of so much color.

"Is something the matter, child?"

"No! Nothin' at all!" She ran from the room to go upstairs and Ororo stared on in confusion.

Remy waltzed in moments later. He'd been sure of the fire in that girl since he'd tried to kiss her, and had been slightly annoyed that she kept it buried. But no longer. He'd gotten a rise out of her and it'd been thrilling, and he was damned if it wasn't going to happen more often. Especially if she continued to refuse to take part in his plan.

And at the same time he'd finally cracked the code around her. He could tell by her outburst that she'd given thought to what he said about breaking Joseph and Kitty apart—even if it was only a second-long lapse of judgment—and her trembling let him know she was more than guilty for it.

"Rogue came in looking quite upset." Ororo hedged when he reached in the fridge for a soda. "Did something happen?"

Remy chuckled and popped open the can. "Nothin' dat she won't t'ank me for someday, Stormy." He gave her a wink and disappeared down the stairs.

…

She flung open the bedroom door and saw the very last people in the world she wanted to see.

"Hey, Rogue." Joseph detangled his arm from around Kitty and they both stood from the bed. "Kitty was just telling me you all went to the mall?"

She threw her purse on the floor and began pulling the blankets back from her bed. She hated her eyes for catching Kitty's red cheeks and Joseph's mussed hair. "Yeah—it was fun."

She'd been furious up until then, but Joseph's unexpected presence made her embarrassed and everything seemed out-of-whack.

Try as she might to ignore everything he'd said, Remy's analysis hit her at the most inopportune moment and she was forced to wonder: _was _he right? And if he was right and there was some small part of her that wanted Joseph more than a friend, what could she do? Even if Cody wasn't still fresh in her mind there was Kitty to add in. Joseph had a girlfriend and he seemed happy with her, and Kitty had been nothing but kind to Rogue since her arrival—though the belle found her annoying at times.

There was his proposal—No. She wouldn't give that sinful plan another thought. She wasn't cruel like that, she'd never do something so...barbarous.

Her head was spinning and another headache was in the works. She needed a hot shower and something to eat and her nice warm bed—

"Did you end up buying anything?" Kitty bounced over to Rogue's side of the room, brown eyes twinkling, and Joseph followed her.

Rogue swallowed and gazed at Joseph's hair once more. Had it always looked so smooth and silvery? "Uh, yeah Ah did—" She felt around her bed and looked to the floor. She was reeling with her argument with Remy and the horrible thought that maybe she did feel for Joseph. Her face was turning red again and it felt like their eyes were burning holes into her…"Oh. Ah must've left my shoppin' bag in the car." Damn that swamp rat.

"What?" Kitty was outraged at the idea of shopping bags being left unattended. "Well we'll go get them and then we can, like, flaunt our purchases!"

Rogue's head spun with the idea of actually interacting with others, with using all that energy to go back downstairs. "Ah dunno if—"

But Kitty's arm was already through hers and Joseph's eyes were so blue and…and before she knew it they were down the staircase and Kitty was shoving her into the cool, lighted garage.

"Come to the rec room!"

Rogue only nodded as they left. She opened the door of Jean's car with dread in her stomach and retrieved the pink and white bag from the backseat. She hated Remy with a passion for bringing things to her attention that had been just fine in obscurity, and envied Kitty for her bright eyes and happy smiles and never-ending energy. She'd been like that not too long ago, and hopefully she'd be like that again.

And, yes, maybe Rogue _did _envy Kitty for her boyfriend as well—but only a little.

_Bronxville, New York_.

Kara sat in front of the monitors with a bowl of chips in her lap and a bottle of lemonade by her foot. The black and white goings on of the mansion before her did little to keep her interest and stifle her yawns, so she swiveled around and turned on the TV. The channels on there weren't much better either.

She heard the turning of a key in the lock, and the sound of shoes being thrown in the closet.

"Honey, I'm home!"

Smiling, she turned off the TV and went back to the monitors.

"How did it go?" she inquired when he came into the living room.

"Perfect as pie." He threw his jacket onto the sofa and examined the monitors over her shoulder. "She looks like a clever little thing from the outside, but I guess the saying about women with big breasts is true. The girl's dumb as mud."

"And what saying would that be?" Her arms went angrily across her own generous chest.

Flex's eyes found the topic of their discussion on the monitor and watched her go from screen to screen as she made her way from the garage to Room 3A. There were already people sprawled on most of the couches and chairs. Her face went rigid when she saw the only open free spot.

Curious, Flex looked at the remaining seat and saw the lanky man beside it pat it invitingly. He was grinning a grin that Rogue obviously found nauseating, and she turned away and simply remained standing.

"Hello?" Kara snapped her fingers in front of his vision.

He knocked her hand away impatiently. "The quality of these cameras are just incredible—I've surprised even myself this time."

Kara rolled her eyes and popped another handful of chips into her mouth. "You're so cocky, but you did a good job, I'll give you that." She tilted her head and he kissed her.

"Where's the overgrown fur ball?" he asked when they pulled away.

"Who knows?" She returned to her task reluctantly and arched her back. Sitting in one spot all day had greatly cramped her muscles and she longed for a hot bath. "I'm so sore," she complained, shooting him a pitying look. "Wanna give me a break?"

He sighed, as if he hadn't been hoping for her to ask that very thing, and made a show of grumbling beneath his breath. "Sure, it's not like _I'm _tired at all—"

She kissed him again and hopped up from the chair. "Talk to Sabby. He's the one who said there needed to be around the clock monitoring."

"I'll do that." But he didn't mean it. Watching the girl could prove key in understanding her likes, dislikes, habits and schedule.

He grabbed the bowl of chips from off of the floor and began munching.

_Xavier's School for Gifted Youngsters._

Kitty showed off her new jeans and blouses exuberantly, and urged Rogue to do so as well. But having Remy there—so close, so amused, like a hot poker sizzling her skin from across the room—made it so she couldn't relax her muscles. She felt as if any glance she sent Joseph's way was processed by Remy and made to be something it wasn't. That stupid swamp rat was turning something innocent and carefree into a dirty, disgusting lie. She liked Joseph as a friend and nothing more.

Emma smiled and applauded Kitty's selections, but raised her eyebrow when Rogue feebly presented hers. Her cold eyes took in Rogue's reddening cheeks and Remy's pointed grins and chuckles in one frigid glance. Her blue-lipsticked mouth went into one of its familiar scowls and she reached for Rogue's cardigan and skirt.

"May I?" She gave no time for Rogue to accede before grabbing up the clothing and holding it up before her. Her nose went up, like the clothes smelled bad. "We get that you're a good little Christian, doll, there's no need to dress like one, too."

Rogue thought she would die of humiliation as peals of the kids' laughter sprang up around her.

"That's, like, rude," Kitty said, coming to Rogue's defense. "Rogue's style is like, so totally retro. She reminds me of Ava Gardner or something."

"She's right, Em," came his sultry voice from behind her. He appeared between she and Kitty, and Rogue saw the not-so-subtle look he bestowed on the bared tops of Emma's breasts. "Besides, _hommes _may have fun wit de bad girl, _mais _dey take de good girl home to _maman_."

Emma only huffed, completely unaffected by Remy's dressing-down. "Just wanted the girl to know it was okay to show a bit of skin, Remy dear."

"S'okay to leave _some _t'ings to de imagination." It was a glaring insult to Emma, but if she noticed she did not comment.

"Always coming to the rescue when it's for your benefit," she sighed. Giving a nasty wink to Rogue, she exited from the room.

"Don't pay any attention to her, Rogue," Kitty said with a rush, confusing the belle's reddened cheeks for embarrassment rather than steaming anger. "Emma, like, says things without thinking first."

"She'll be okay," Remy murmured, giving Rogue that grin she so hated.

"Aren't ya sweet," Rogue spat. Her words were so noticeably clipped that Kitty's eyes widened.

"I am." He remained, as usual, cool in the wake of her sparking anger. "No apology needed, _chère_."

"Good." She spun from him haughtily, gathering her clothing as she did so. "'Cause Ah wasn't plannin' on givin' one."

Kitty gasped but only hearty laughter came from Remy.

"Y' know," he whispered close enough to her ear to prevent others from hearing, "I don' t'ink y' angry 'cause of what I said, _mais _because I read y' so damn easily. Y' t'ink y' secretive, Rogue, y' t'ink dat you're too calm and careful for anyone to see through y'. Y' wrong."

She'd never expected his breath to smell so fresh and welcome.

"I wasn't shootin' air when I said I get what I want. Help me get what I want, an' I'll leave y' alone forever." He left her side and loudly suggested to the kids that they all play a game of pool.

"Me an' Jamie on a team, an' Joe an' Amara on de other," Rogue heard as she made her swift retreat to her room, "Y'all win an' I'll do dishes for a week, I win an' I get a kiss from _le chat_—"

Rogue mounted the staircase and attempted to fathom the man known as Gambit. He went from sweet and attentive to mean-spirited and vulgar in the blink of an eye. The same man who allowed her to cry on his chest after only knowing her for minutes was now trying to goad her into betraying her friends for his benefit.

Exhaustion hit her halfway up the staircase and she leaned heavily on the banister. Only hours ago she'd been having a good time with John and baring her soul to Remy; now the pain in her temples was roaring at full blast and she felt as if she couldn't put one foot in front of the other. Gambit was getting under her skin and she was letting him.

...

Kitty entered their room later on with the utmost quiet, but Rogue still heard her. She'd been trying to fall asleep for hours, and the nightly amount of aspirin wasn't easing the pain in her head. Taking the recommended amount of pain killers had stopped working soon after her arrival in New York, and since then she'd been toeing the very thin line between safety and danger. Overdosing had become a very real fear of hers, but popping pill after pill throughout the night seemed the lesser of two evils most of the time.

She tossed and turned some more before sitting up in bed. "Ya can turn on the light if it helps. Ah'm not asleep."

Kitty jumped, obviously startled, and fumbled around her nightstand for the lamp. She found it and her side of the room was thrown into light. "I didn't, like, wake you up, did I? I was trying super hard to keep quiet—"

"Nah," she assured with the wave of a hand, a sudden ache for companionship gripping her. "Ah've been layin' awake for a while now." She bit her lip and tucked her hands underneath her legs.

She must have been wearing her thoughts on her face, because before she knew it Kitty was hopping on her bed and peeling back the layers of her skin with her brown eyes.

"What Emma said isn't bothering you, is it?"

Rogue rolled her eyes impatiently and snorted. "Lord, no. Ah know the kinda lady Ms. Frost is, an' Ah can handle anythin' she throws at me." Some of the breeze from the open balcony swept in and she breathed deeply. "Ah wanna know about...About ya an' that swamp rat."

Her ears were still buzzing with heat from the earlier incident, and if she was less of a lady she'd march down the stairs and release her anger through fists. She wondered if Remy could maintain his cocky airs with bruises on his pretty face and a crook in his aquiline nose.

But she was not yet angry enough to miss seeing the pink tint blooming on Kitty's cheeks, and she watched ungraciously as the girl fumbled over her words—it was even harder than usual to keep up with her fast-paced voice—and twiddle her thumbs.

"That's, like, _so _random. That can't be what's bothering you!" She giggled nervously, looking up to see if Rogue's eyes had lost their frighteningly-focused glint.

They hadn't. "Oh, come on! What's the big deal? Nobody brings it up, an' if some brave soul does everybody gets all blushy an' awkward." She crossed her arms over her chest. "Ah know it's hard to believe, but knowing this will really help me out."

If she learned the secret Remy kept so close she could use it against him. Throwing the fact that she knew could make him reconsider his foolish notion of pestering her and get him to back off. He already had so much on her, not only what she'd blamed on about for forty-five minutes, but somehow, _somehow_, he'd picked up on something she wasn't ready to even think about. Knowing an equally personal desire or incident could level the playing field and make things a little more fair.

Kitty was still floundering, so the belle sweetened her smile and went for a different approach. "We're friends, right?"

"R-Right," she managed.

"An' we're roommates, right?"

Kitty nodded dutifully. "We're very good friends, Rogue, but—"

"An' wouldn't it seem logical for roommates to share almost everythin'? Especially, say, the truth about old flames?" She scooted closer to Kitty eagerly. She could tell she was overpowering the older girl, and though a part of her felt guilty, another part felt justified. "So come on, shuga. Why did things between y'all end? Did he cheat on ya?" That seemed like something that dirty Cajun would do.

"Goodness, no!" Kitty seemed shocked at the thought. "Remy is a good guy, Rogue. He just, like, doesn't like showing it to many people. He totally tries to be a badass, but he's really just a softie." She smiled warmly at the thought of her friend.

Rogue stared at her for a moment, waiting to see if she would burst into laughter at her own absurdity. "If that's the case then why did y'all call it quits?"

Her smile shrank until sad replaced the content. This sudden reaction startled Rogue, because she had never seen Katherine Pryde as anything other than a ditzy girl with an unending supply of energy. It seemed, however, that she was capable of feeling an emotion other than happy and giggly after all.

"He was too much for me." She kept her focus on the pillow between their knees. "I wasn't—I'm _not _right for him." She turned her head to gaze out of the open doors. Her throat tightened. "I just wish I could have made him realize that it was me and not him all along."

Rogue sat there, completely taken aback. She was capable of serious speech as well? There was a woman behind the ditz, and Rogue had just seen it.

She stood from the bed and tried to smile. "I'm sorry but it's still pretty hard for me to talk about. Goodnight."

She went to the bathroom and closed the door. Rogue laid beneath the covers guiltily. Curiosity burned even hotter in her breast.

_Bronxville, New York._

"Those two are idiots." He let the individual blind fall back in place and stepped away from the window. "I don't know why the big guy insists on keepin' 'um around."

His companion did not look up from his novel. He seemed unashamed being in his burgundy-colored house robe in front of a guest, and lounged comfortably on his favorite reading chair. "Could it be because you're a blood-thirsty monster that rips and tears first and thinks about it after?" He turned a thick page smoothly.

"Why, Frankie!" Sabretooth beamed and furrowed his massive eyebrows. "That's darn near the nicest thing these ears have ever heard."

His host did look up at him this time, and his face was less than amused. "I won't have you screwing this up for me, do you understand?" His fingers turned white as his hold tightened around the book. "If you go losing your head and attacking the mansion their guard's going to go up instantly." Frank brushed sweat from his forehead and pressed himself harder against the back of the chair. "I'll make Fury pay in the grandest way possible, and to do that I need that girl."

"Well," he said after a moment of silence, "I see that the rumors are true. You really _have _lost your mind." His tone was neat and unapologetic.

"You know," Frank grinned and relaxed once more. "I may be more psychotic than even you."

Sabretooth guffawed until the delicate-looking room shook with the force of it. "You've been fantasizing about what you're going to do to his daughter, haven't you?" He laughed again and patted Frank on the back. "I've always liked you, ya sick bastard. As long as I get her to my boss man alive—"

"She'll still be breathing." He licked his upper lip, another one of his common ticks, and went back to reading his novel and sipping his tea.

_Xavier's School for Gifted Youngsters._

As she slept unknowingly, her mind was in a complex turmoil that would leave her changed forever. Brain matter was warping and her DNA strands were glowing at odd intervals. The tiny section of her DNA that carried the X-gene glowed the very brightest. It shuddered violently and, still unconscious, Rogue's brows furrowed because of the pain.

Then it went still. The strands stopped glowing and all of the light was concentrated inside the X-gene. Rogue melted into her pillows and blankets and would wake up in the morning feeling better than she had in months. For the first time in a long time she could yawn and stretch and not feel as if her skull were splitting in two.

She would notice this and think of it as a change for the better.

Things were changing all right—but in more ways than she could ever expect.

* * *

Next chapter Rogue will have an episode with her mutation that the Prof. can no longer ignore. And then things just get more screwed up from there :] Poor Roguey just can't catch a break in my world...Hopefully chapter 2 of RTN will be up tomorrow or the day after (Winter break is _awesome_—there's time for fanfiction AND a life!) as well as an update for BB.

Review, please.

Merry X-Mas!


	8. Mutant

She was falling through a crevice of darkness so thick that it slowed her descent. The black substance was like jelly or rubber and it surrounded her, completely surrounded her, until no part of her body was free for movement. Even her eyes and mouth were being filled with this blackness—it was suffocating her. She couldn't breathe. It felt as if it was penetrating the shell of her skin, flowing through her so easily, as if she was netting: full of holes for 'it' (the powerful blackness) to seep through.

It was a part of her and she was a part of it. The feeling of transparency was somehow not alien, she'd felt this before: this startling openness that made it seem as if she was bonding with this other substance, like her molecules and its molecules had eradicated the natural barrier around themselves so that they could be one.

She remembered falling like this before: _waking up cold at night on the living room floor; holding herself close because it was so cold. She was shivering—_

_She became one with the block of ice and she was shivering. She held her breath and floated right through the glacier until she felt Bobby's hand—_

_Joseph's hand in her own. He made her feel solid like nothing else could. He kept her where she was, kept it so that she could feel the hard ground beneath her feet and the wind through her ponytail. She knew as long as she had him she would not float away—_

_He made her want to float away. His smiles and caresses made her stomach dissolve into pleasant bubbles. Remy was so overwhelming, like a wave of hotness and honey and bitter, bitter forbidden fruit. He was so solid and real and hard, too real. She was terrified—_

She was terrified. Her eyes shot open and she saw that her roommate was sprawled out on the ground and that she, she was…

She was falling. There was blackness again, only this blackness was more of a veil than an all-consuming ocean. She was in the in between: the place nestled in the middle of the Dream World and Reality. She was still drowning in the dark, yet she could see her bed and the balcony and then she was seeing the space underneath her bed and she didn't understand how this could be. She was truly falling, no more dreams. Through her bed, through the floor, she couldn't feel them go through her, her body wouldn't let her breathe because her brain and instincts knew that breathing could prove fatal.

Sunlight from an open window in the downstairs kitchen reflected off of the refrigerator and blinded her. Faces that she recognized rose up around her and she swore that this was a nightmare: similar to the ones that involved going to school in pajamas and feeling them staring, staring…They're staring. She can feel it and she wants to melt away from this nightmare, and because she wants this her brain grants it and she truly is melting—She picked out Remy from the sea of faces because he was the closest. Her mouth opened in a silent cry for help; _she had to tell him that her phasing was out of control again, just like before. Did he remember? _She didn't want him but she needed him and she was falling…

Her limbs and body were soon sinking into the tiled floor and she remotely heard the startled cries and exclamations of those around her. Remy reached for her like she knew he would, he threw himself on the ground to try and save her, but his arms went right through her and caught nothing.

She was falling.

…

The mansion was in chaos. Not wanting to waste time gathering the entire team for what he assumed would be an easily-explainable phenomenon, Logan left the kitchen with Remy and Joseph in tow and the three ventured down to the lower levels of the home.

"How was that possible?" Joseph voiced the question all three men were thinking. "Could her mutation have finally surfaced?"

Remy thought of blue eyes overtaking green, of the words of a boy through her pretty little mouth—but kept his thoughts to himself. Some horrible, dull feeling was spreading across the back of his brain but he couldn't connect the dots. He felt as if he should know something, should be worrying about something…but it didn't come to him and he continued the search.

Logan paused in the middle of the shining hallway and tilted his face upward. His nostrils flared just the tiniest bit and soon he was leaving the two other men and heading even deeper into the mansion.

"What're you—"

Remy followed after Wolverine and looked back at the confused mutant with a grim smirk. The tip of his pointer finger tapped against his own nose. "He's got 'er scent." Explanation aside, Remy proceeded to follow the older man.

After pausing, Joseph frowned and forcibly woke himself from his stupor. He too increased his speed to catch up with the determined Wolverine.

After the medlab, Danger Room, and War Room yielded no results; Joseph began to feel discouraged and fell back even farther from the other members of the party. He looked at the ground below his feet and swallowed—hard.

"What if she couldn't stop falling?"

It was a very real fear, but Remy turned to glare at him anyway. Usually, Joseph outmatched even Scott with his 'on the Bright Side' theories; Remy didn't understand why Joseph's optimism chose to falter now.

"No," Logan snapped, his own worry making him brusque. "I can smell her. She's around here somewhere. If the walls and doors weren't so damn thick I'd have her tracked down by now—"

Joseph kept the rest of his argument to himself. However, the next thought that popped into his mind could not be stifled: "Poor Kitty. She cares a lot about Rogue, I hope she's holding out all right."

Every single inkling of foreboding Remy had had up until that point slammed into him all at once with ferocity. There was a breathless instant in which the room spun dizzyingly around him and his always-warm hands turned cold.

_Kitty._

.

After the momentary weak spell, Remy was filled with action. He spun on the toe of his combat boot and ran the opposite way, towards the elevator. He did not answer when Joseph called after him.

"What the hell?"

The question was directed to Logan, but the entirety of his companion's focus was on the girl's lingering scent and her possible location. He came to the large metal doors of Cerebro and lifted his head.

"She's here." Logan tossed an expectant look over his shoulder, and after Joseph gave no response he growled out a "well?" and nodded to the doors.

He managed not to blush, though he felt the need, and lifted up his arms. The doors gave way with a screeching groan, and they were permitted into the vast darkness of Cerebro. He knew with some awe that the only reason he was able to access the great machine so easily was because his father had partaken in the construction of the professor's most important tool, and had probably incorporated his own powers of magnetism into the processor.

Lights and machinery whirred to life as the weight of the two men registered on the walkway.

Joseph looked over the railing and into the very belly of the circular room, and gulped at the drop. It was quite a long way down, especially with only hard metal as the promised landing pad.

The sound of bulbs activating one by one ceased and the room seemed to bulge with all of the artificial light. It was quite uncomfortable for Joseph and Logan, who'd spent the past few moments letting their eyes adjust to the welcoming darkness.

When the spots of color stopped being as distracting, Joseph could clearly see Rogue where she lay on her side—her mane of curls resting across her cheek and her knees curled daintily. Her small hands lay motionless in an arc above her head, and her sleeping pose in its entirety reminded Joseph of a ballerina in mid-leap.

The rest of his assessment came to a halt as the sight of Logan's back eradicated his view. He looked down with a frown and some embarrassment as the older man lifted the girl effortlessly and turned back around.

"Her breathin' rate is normal far as I can tell. Let's take her upstairs so Hank and Chuck can have a—" Logan shook his head as a sudden dizziness clutched him; his upper body began to go slack and the little waif of a girl in his arms was somehow becoming a burden.

He ignored this strange feeling and continued to make his way to the exit and Joseph, who was now watching the paling man with growing concern.

"Logan? What's—"

The sentence went unfinished. Logan's eyes rolled to the back of his head and he fell forward with the girl still in his arms. She remained serene and seemingly-undisturbed through the fall, though the full weight of Logan's adamantium-laced body was on top of her.

Joseph reacted quickly and moved to help both of his fallen friends, but before he even so much as reached an arm's length distance the voice of his mentor slammed into his mind. He cried out and held his head; the abrupt intrusion was causing his very skull to throb.

_I apologize_, was the rushed beginning of the panicked message, _but there is no time to explain now. Coat yourself in a protective magnetic shield and surround Rogue as well._

Joseph was immediately frightened. The professor knew forming and maintaining shields was still too difficult for him to hold for long periods of time as it was—but surrounding himself _and _another person? It was simply impossible!

_Joseph! Logan is dying as we speak!_

That statement was enough to clear some of the indecision from his mind, but it also provided even more confusion and hesitance. He could not accomplish this…it was too far advanced for him!

_That's it! _Xavier encouraged as Joseph's brows furrowed and his arms lifted.

The shield thrummed and bulged, but continued to seep from his trembling hands until both Rogue and himself were completely incased in separate magnetic fields.

_Just a little longer, my boy—Jean is nearly there._

The white-haired mutant dropped to his knees but did not forfeit his control. He managed to maintain consciousness until he heard Jean Grey enter behind him and painlessly replace his shields with stronger, telekinetic ones.

…

It was the wind that ultimately woke her—not due to harshness or chill, but because of its sweet smell and familiar caress. It was unexplainable, but somehow she _knew _this wind, had felt wind like or similar to it. She'd flown kites with this wind, won the fourth grade spelling bee with this wind, felt this very same wind in the winter when she first kissed.

Home. Mississippi wind.

Her eyes opened rapidly and she felt the hard contours of a rock beneath her. Her arms laid at her sides and the bottom of her feet were frequently tickled by the silky white panicles in a nearby Oakleaf Hydrangea. _Mama used to grow bunches of these_, she mused, and let her head fall back.

The scents of Azaleas, Johnsonia Flowers, and her favorite: Magnolias, filled every one of her senses and made her sleepy. She forced open her eyes once more, however, and saw nothing but bunches of every kind of white flower she'd ever seen. All were in full bloom and were so healthy she imagined them popping with their own brightness. Their aromas mingled so wonderfully that it was all she could do not to give into her drowsiness.

She got to her feet after multiple yawns and could barely stay standing on the flat rock. The flowers and swaying grass would have been taller than her if she hadn't been on the large boulder, and it grew so densely and thick it was nearly intoxicating.

But peaceful. So peaceful. She looked to the white clouds and blue sky and didn't bother trying to keep her legs from wobbling. She sank first to her knees, then eventually to her side. She was so sleepy…

She felt a hand rest on her hip and somehow it was not frightening, but totally expected and welcome. "Cody," she murmured, "why am Ah so darn sleepy?"

"You're not used to it yet," he explained simply. "Eventually ya won't feel anythin', Possum."

It was the once-dreaded endearment that started the tears. "Oh, Cody…Ah thought ya were dead!" She rolled her weary body on its other side and curled into his warm, solid body. "Ah've missed ya so much."

His arms went around her; his forehead rested against hers. "Thanks to you," he said in between kissing her lips, "Ah'll never be _truly _gone. Ah'll get ta see the world through _your _eyes."

The statement reminded her of something equally puzzling that he'd said earlier, and she frowned. But he was kissing her so thoroughly and gently that she could do nothing but weep and tangle herself further into his hold….but she couldn't forget to ask him what he meant when he said all that, she couldn't forget—

She was content, sleepy, and so wrapped up in his touch that she didn't notice the sudden quickening of the wind.

But Cody did. He stiffened and began to part from the belle, but didn't make it far before Rogue's arms went around his neck and pulled him back against her mouth.

"There's so much Ah wanna say, so much Ah wanna apologize for—" Her parent's disappearance came to mind first. She wanted to tell him about her loneliness and how secluded she felt living in a house full of mutants; she wanted to make him understand how painful it was when she'd seen all that blood pouring down his chest; how much it'd killed her knowing that _she _was the reason he'd suffered so.

Her gaze went to his throat, she was looking for some kind of scar, some evidence to make this whole ordeal not so surreal. She found none, and though there was a part of her that _knew _this: the field of white flowers, the rock she laid upon, Cody—could not be real. She'd fallen asleep in a borrowed bed, in a room she shared with a girl she barely knew, in a mansion full of people so different from herself that there was no hope to even _begin_ bridging the gap between them.

But then how to explain this? For she knew this was no dream. There was an element of reality in all of this that couldn't be disproved, but yet...

She ached for him to know all of this and so much more, but her head and eyelids were growing heavier and heavier and his lips felt good on hers and his arms kept her from falling.

He seemed to already know. "S'okay, Possum. Go ta sleep now, ya hear?"

She nodded gratefully and let her tired cheek rest against his chest. She finally lost her long battle against sleep, but faintly heard his voice one last time:

"Remember, Possum—I can see through _your _eyes." A fluttering touch atop her head. "_Ah love you._"

…

He blinked twice before being able to hold his eyes open completely. Jean was the first person he saw. She stood on one side of Rogue's small, prone form—while Xavier sat on the other. Both of their eyes were closed in obvious concentration; their hands hovered above the belle's forehead and upper torso. Jean's shield was still erected around Rogue, and Joseph felt a lingering sort of shame that he was constantly falling behind the rest of his peers in the power-development department.

He sat up in the uncomfortable bed and his face went pale from the strain. He rubbed his hand over his eyes and head to relieve some of the tension, but abruptly stopped when he looked to his side.

There, next to the unconscious Wolverine, was Kitty. She wasn't moving.

Pain and fatigue were pushed to a remote part of his conscious and before he knew it he was dragging himself from the bed and headed towards Kitty. Questions formed at the speed of light in his mind but there weren't answers to be found. Kitty should've been safe in her bed this morning; there was absolutely no logical explanation for her current predicament! And yet there she was: small, white, and hooked up to a breathing machine. (For God's sake—a _breathing machine_!)

If he felt jealousy when he reached her side and noticed Remy's fingers grazing over her cheeks and forehead—it didn't register. He was more concerned with her declined health than a stupid rivalry he'd tried to mend months and months ago.

…

Remy had no idea why he'd given his seat to Joseph; had no idea why it almost seemed _right _seeing Joseph's worried blue eyes go over her tiny frame to try and find an inch of her skin to touch that wasn't attached to some kind of wiring or IV.

All he knew was that in the last few months of their relationship, Kitty had pulled away from Remy's touch like he'd been acidic. He thought then, and still does now, that it was because of his womanizing reputation, or his thieving ways, or his sometimes unexplainable behavior that made her seek comfort somewhere else.

He turned away and let Joseph stand where he so badly wanted to stand. He turned away and retreated to where he belonged: in the shadows.

…

She woke the second time because of the shivers; this waking was decidedly less pleasant than the first.

She looked around her and felt confusion and fear creeping in. Her field was silent: no sound of a bubbling brook, no birds chirping, no soft tinkling of wind chimes, no frogs hopping from lily pad to lily pad, no crickets rubbing their spindly legs together. With the silence had gone the brightness as well, for her sky was grey—the sun was gone—and a thick blanket of snow weighed down all of her beautiful flowers and made them droop. She'd never seen a winter like this in Mississippi.

She trembled and moved to wrap her arms around herself for warmth, but found she couldn't. Metal shackles kept her arms against the frigid rock. She felt a scream rising, but a breathing mask smothered the attempt. Water surrounded her somehow; her appendages went numb.

No nightmare had ever felt so real.

Figures in white appeared above her, at first she thought they were angels. She thrashed around in her watery prison to get their attention, but they did not seem to notice. Their faces and bodies were blurry from beneath the water, but she could clearly see the transformation around her from a field to a metallic room. She felt the rock she'd been laying on flatten to a slab. Clear walls, like those found in a tank, formed around her on all sides.

Beeping machinery was what she heard next. She screamed for Cody, for Joseph, for her parents—for anyone. No one came, and then there was pain. Pain like none she'd ever experienced.

Long, thin needles piercing her skin and filling her with liquid fire. Blood filling the tank and bubbling out of her open, screaming mouth.

_Father, may I never be content to pass by thy beautiful offerings—_

The clear water turned red. Curses she never even knew existed spilled wordlessly from her lips. She should have been healing…she knew she should have been healing. What was taking so long? Where was she?

_—and keep on in wretched despair. Save me if I may 'be inclining toward misery._

She made a vow as her very bones screamed in agony that she was going to kill these bastards. Kill them and rip them apart so thoroughly that it would take years to find their body parts. She would kill them and kill Sabretooth, too and make it so he could never regenerate—

Rogue prayed and the other self—the angry, murderous, and wild being that was with her, _in_ her—swore vengeance. They both felt the pain. Logical thought was ripped from both of them and the certainty of death took its place.

_Give me the spirit of repose, and help me to confide in thee as I daily seek the strength of thy love._

Death sounded wondrous, she thought. She wanted death, wanted peace and quiet and beautiful numbness…the other self was a survivor. The other self wanted to crawl from the tank desperately and _live_. The other self wanted the smell of Canada in its nostrils, snow crunching beneath its feet.

They screamed once more before the precious blackness of unconsciousness slammed into them.

_Amen_.

…

Logan woke the next afternoon, while Kitty remained nearly comatose for another two days. Rogue was still unresponsive some three days later.

Xavier and his furry blue friend spent the days trying to compile information to properly understand Rogue's dangerous mutation.

"I heard her thrashing around," Kitty began while holding the cup of coffee in her hands.

She'd been allowed to leave the Med Lab for good the night before, and felt a bit ill at having to sit in the lab once more for questioning.

"I realized she was having a nightmare—but, like, a really, _really _bad nightmare—complete with screaming, sweating, and crying." She shook her head and shivered at the memory. Joseph scooted closer to her in a show of support. "I got up to check on her, but before I could make it, like, a foot away from my bed—I collapsed."

It was this part of Kitty's testimony that most puzzled the two men. They knew the weakness and eventual fainting was due to Rogue's mutation, as was Rogue's sudden ability to phase. It was obvious that the young girl possessed some sort of copy-cat mutation, but at the same time, Remy's experience in speaking to Cody through Rogue added yet another layer of confusion.

"It felt like I was getting pulled—" She smiled deprecatingly and shrugged at her audience of the professor, Hank, Joseph, Jean, Logan, Ororo, and Remy. "I know it doesn't, like, make a lot of sense, but that's what happened. Next thing I knew I woke up here."

Xavier rubbed his temples tiredly—one of the few shows of weariness he allowed his students to see.

"If this helps," Jean said, "When I was holding those shields around Rogue…I felt that pulling feeling, too, only she wasn't pulling me—she was pulling at the shield itself. I kept having to reform it every so often."

Xavier and Beast first looked to Jean, then to each other, at the very same time. Perhaps the situation wasn't as hopeless as they'd feared.

"She sees the death of her friend and is suddenly able to channel him, including his eye color." Beast paces back and forth, the pads on the bottom of his large paws make a noise on the waxy floor. "She suffers from an obviously traumatizing dream. Kitty feels a pull, collapses, and Rogue has Kitty's phasing ability for at least twenty minutes—and again Rogue's irises seem to waver from her natural green to Kitty's hazel, and back. Logan attempts to help her and feels the same pull and weakness as Kitty—then proceeds to collapse in the same fashion. It makes sense that he would gain consciousness before Kitty due to his incredible healing ability—"

"But she showed half-pint's powers," Logan cut in gruffly. "She sure as hell ain't showed mine. Doesn't really prove your theory, fur ball."

"On the contrary," Beast exclaimed gleefully. They could all see that he was growing more and more excited at the marvel of Rogue's mutation. "Look at this." He put the x-ray's he'd taken of Rogue onto the lighted board. "This is Rogue's ankle when she was first brought into the Med Lab after the incident." He pointed to a jagged-looking patch of white. "This is a fracture. She must've broken her ankle during the fall."

Logan crossed his arms impatiently while the rest of the team looked on with interest.

"And _this_," he continued, "is Rogue's ankle after I performed a second set of x-ray's."

The x-ray is put up and there are no longer any jagged edges.

"It's completely healed," Ororo gasps. "That means—"

"That means that she _did _exhibit Wolverine's mutation," Charles concluded. "There is no other explanation as to how her severely-broken ankle healed within days."

"Precisely. Which is why I believe Rogue's power is not based on mimicking, but on an exact re-creation of another's."

"_Mais _wouldn't dat mean her DNA changed?"

"It would seem that way, though because she exhibited no more phasing and/or healing abilities—a temporary one. It's safe to assume that because Kitty and Logan both have their mutations back in working order that the amount of time they were exposed to Rogue's mutation directly effects how long she'll maintain abilities and how long they'll be powerless. There seems to be no lasting effect on Rogue, Logan, or Kitty, but we cannot be certain until Rogue wakens and the professor is able to get passed her mental blocks if this theory proves true or not."

Remy burst into laughter and those around him turned to stare. "_Désolé,_" he apologized while sucking in air, "jus' hilarious t'inkin' de all-powerful Wolverine was knocked out for a whole day cause of a _petite fille_."

Logan grunted at the ensuing chuckles. "I told ya, any kid of Nick and Raven's ain't no weaklin'." He abruptly changed the subject: "Anyways, that all sounds fine and dandy, Beast, but none of your fancy-schmancy wordin' explains why she's still out cold. It's almost been four days, and she's still in that little room you all put her in."

He had a point, and the room sobered quickly.

"Her mind needs time to heal, Logan. 'Absorbing'—as we'll call it—two mutants at one time has undoubtedly traumatized her mind in one way or another. I would have thought it more strange had she been conscious sooner. And as for putting Rogue in that 'little room,'" He knew very well how opposed Logan was to someone being restrained in any way, "is not only for our safety, but for Rogue's as well. If she were not contained in some way then we'd all be exposed to her mutation, and unconscious because of it."

"He's my best friend, Chuck, and one of the few people I respect." Logan's hands curled into his fists, though his facial expression did not change. "And I sure ain't doing a good job of protecting his little girl while he can't."

He turned and left the Med Lab before Xavier tried to offer comfort.

_Bronxville, New York._

"I swear," Kara managed around a mouthful of chips behind his shoulder, "this place is full of drama. I haven't had to watch TV for days—I got my own real-life soap right here."

Flex cracked his knuckles to relieve his irritation. "I'm glad you're amused, Kay," he snapped. "but when you get done stuffing that cute mouth of yours—do you think you could actually get off your ass and do some work?"

Her upper lip curled in a show of extreme anger. "Now you listen to me _Adrian_—I don't know what he hell your problem is, and honestly I couldn't care less. But whatever's making your pathetic life even more miserable is none of my fault." She retrieved the bag of chips she'd thrown in anger and proceeded to continue eating. "If you'll excuse me, I'm going to go 'stuff my cute mouth' some more. If you need anything, _don't _let me know."

He watched as she spun on her heel and stomped up the stairs. He winced when she reached the bedroom and slammed the door closed harshly enough to make the house shake.

Flex ran his hand over his darkening stubble and forced his attention back to the monitors. Kara didn't understand that their mission was in jeopardy: the girl's mutation wasn't supposed to surface so quickly. Things were _more _than complicated now, and every second that ticked by was making it harder and harder to see how they could possibly fulfill the prophecy.

Rogue was unknowingly on her way to becoming the most powerful mutant that has been or ever will be.

* * *

It felt damn good writing this after 5 months of inactivity. I missed you all and I missed reading and writing. If anyone's still interested after all of this time, I'm planning on having an update for Brittle Bones and RTN within the week.

Thank you to those who have stuck it out with me over the months. Y'all are my joy ;] Review Replies coming soon.

Review Please.


	9. Logan

**A/N: **For anyone still interested...the long-awaited 9th chapter.

* * *

He didn't wait. Even his healing abilities sped against the natural occurence of time.

He liked to strike quick and hard. No opponent was too big, too fast, too smart for him. With the exception of the runt and, most recently: Magneto, he had never been defeated or postponed. But it's been weeks and weeks since this whole plan was set in motion, since his target—his _prey_—was identified and left dangling before his dripping fangs.

He wanted the little whisp of the girl, wanted her fear and her pretty little screams. Wanted to rape her in every sense of the word—poison. If she was able to maintain sanity, if she was somehow able to go on with a normal life after he was done with her...Well, that would mean he hadn't done his job very well.

But the Superior and his two goons were holding him back and the strain was making itself more and more apparent. He just needed a chance, an opening. An opportunity to snatch her away without the X-Men being able to fall into their unfailing habit of getting in the way.

But he's been here every night, just far enough from the outskirts of the property to stay hidden from Wolverine's hourly scouts—and nothing. Air tight.

But he didn't wait, and bloodlust was causing planning and logic to bow under adrenaline and need.

...

_Beep. Beep._

Rogue knew, with no hesitation whatsoever, that she was in her bed.

Not the too small, too cold, too hard bed that the X-Men were letting her use, but _her _bed. The bed she'd had since she was old enough to have a bed. The bed that felt like it had marshmallows for a mattress and clouds for pillows; with a sigh-inducing combination of silk sheets and cotton blankets.

The bed she'd cried on with her mother supporting her from the side, the bed she'd laughed on during numerous phone conversations with her friends, the bed she and Cody had been curled up in on movie nights. The bed that still smelled of her vanilla shampoo and strawberry body wash and smoke from the fireplace.

She smiled contentedly and curled into a smaller cocoon. The heat from the fire was basking her entire self in warmth, and kept her so very groggy that there was no hope for her to even _try _and leave the comfort of her bed.

"Are you awake, James?"

Her eyes opened involuntarily and she felt herself smiling at the stocky man. "Barely, father."

The man grinned, though she could hardly see his mouth through his thick beard. She watched as he removed his heavy coat to reveal old-fashioned clothing. He threw his boots by the fireplace and hung his musket on a wooden knob by the door.

It all seemed so foreign. Yet she knew this; she'd seen him do this a thousand times before.

"Let me see your hands, son." He reached beneath the blanket and brought her small, bandaged hands closer to his face for a better examination.

"They're much better, father," her mouth was working of its own accord once again. "Only horribly itchy still."

"No pain then?" He searched her eyes with his deep brown ones, and she felt all the love and devotion he had for her.

"_Kitty! Kitty, honey, you're late, time to wake up!"_

"No, no pain." But her attention was now on the woman's voice. Where was it coming from? It couldn't be mother, for mother died years before from the grippe.

She missed Mother's soft hands and crooning voice. She'd been gentle like the most delicate rose; just as beautiful too, with hair as red as the flower itself. As far as she was concerned the woman she married would be just like mother: beautiful, serene, filled to the brim with an inner kindness that warmed those around her.

Except she remembered _losing_ Mama somehow: not in death, but because of forces she had no control over; people or things that were far beyond her realm but in her life somehow.

She looked out the window to try and find where the voice was coming from, but saw nothing except the forest and mountains she'd known all her life.

She turned to examine the other window, but was greeted with sunny skies and reddish-colored earth. _Mississippi?_

There was a burning in her knuckles and a crazed need to scratch them overtook her. She fought against her father's increasing hold and ripped the bandages from her hands and they were bleeding. Her knuckles were straining against the skin.

"James! James stop it!"

She could smell her father's fear, sense the increase flutter of his heart, hear the snow hitting the roof.

"_Katherine Pryde, you get out of that bed right this instant!"_

And she was falling again: through the bed and through the floor and then she was surrounded by water; and her cushioned bed was gone and her safe log cabin and her father and her mother and she was going to get grounded for _sure, _and there was a school dance this weekend and Cody—no—Lance, yes, _Lance _already asked her and...

And the figures in white were back and the bones protruding from her hands were no longer bones. She could smell the metal they used all over her body and it was making her want to vomit and she was thrashing and they were trying to contain her.

But this time she was ready for them.

...

Some months later, during one of their routine skirmishes in the Danger Room, Logan confessed to Rogue that most of his memory was blurred. He asked her about what she saw. How did he escape the facility? He had a feeling, but didn't want to believe it.

She answered in all truth that, mercifully enough, whenever this memory resurfaced she could see and hear nothing until the very end. But when she was done her vision returned and she was always in the middle of the metal room: knuckles throbbing and skin sticky.

She tried to assure him that it was probably nothing more than sweat or substances from the tank, but there was no need for her to lie. He already knew.

...

White lights. Too bright for her eyes. A soothing voice:

"I'm reaching her." The Professor.

In his chair. One hand on his temple and the other reaching for her. He was pleading both physically and mentally.

Wolverine on her left, Remy on her right. Both scooting closer. Trying to stop her. Stop her from...

Rogue looked down. In her grip was a terrified Scott. There were bones and they were dripping with blood from where they pierced the skin of her hands. They were pressed against Scott's throat and if she would've been asleep any longer she would have killed him.

She dropped her hold with a shriek and watched as Joseph and Kitty ran forward to help the traumatized man to stand. In their eyes was fear. All of their eyes. They were all terrified of her and she didn't blame them; she was terrified of _herself_. One minute she'd been in a log cabin with her father, and the next—No.

She brought her still-bleeding hands to her temples and tried to breathe. No. Not her father. Her father was Nick Fury, and her mother was Raven Fury, and she was Rogue Fury and she'd never even known someone named Lance!

Logan reached her first and she felt a catch between his soul and hers but she was too dizzy to try and figure it all out. He held her against him and they both sank down to the ground together.

"Hurt like a motherfucker, don't they?" He was smiling, and she found comfort in that.

She nodded, promising herself that she was _not _going to cry in front of these people, and he brushed what she guessed was blood from her cheek. He took her hands in his, and it reminded her of the man in the cabin. She knew that Logan would help her.

"Gumbo!" He said suddenly, "get everyone outta here. She don't need no audience."

Remy nodded, and looked at the two of them before doing what he was told. He didn't know what to be more shocked about: that the girl was still standing after losing so much blood, after almost killing a boy, after bones pierced her flesh; or that the Wolverine not only had a heart, but was _showing _it. Both were pretty shock-worthy.

"Come on, Scotty." He gave the still-pale X-Man a friendly kick on the ass. "Barely a scratch on y'. Git."

"All I did was go in to give her some food!" Scott said to Jean when she came to his side and encouraged him along. "And she just...she just..."

Soon the room was cleared save for the professor and himself. He threw one last look over his shoulder before he left. It seemed Rogue was even more intriguing than he originally thought.

...

The retracting of the claws was decidedly less painful than the initial extension, and after a shower, a hot meal, and a pain pill Rogue settled back into the little room she'd escaped from earlier and slept the rest of the night away. She rested comfortably knowing that Logan would honor his promise and stay next to her bed until she woke in the morning. There was a bond between them that came fast and strong.

She loved him subconsciously because her brain knew that he was a part of her; and he loved her because she was the only other person in the world to know _exactly _what he experienced. From what she told him before she fell asleep, she'd been in the tank, seen the men in white, seen his _father_. She saw the things he couldn't remember, and somewhere inside Logan felt excited, maybe even hopeful. She could be the key to his past.

...

"It's simply _incredible_," he said to the blue doctor as they made their way to the lower levels the next morning. "For her mind to completely heal itself in such a short time...it is unheard of!" Xavier shook is head and smiled up at his companion. "Have you ever seen anything like it, Henry?"

Beast entered the code on the keypad and the doors to the infirmary _swooshed _open. They both stepped through and the equally-excited doctor chuckled.

"You know I haven't. Nothing like this has ever even been recorded, Charles. There are numerous cases of telepathy, teleportation, invisibility, flight, and such—even Magneto has a match to his magnetism in Joseph. But Rogue is something completely all her own."

"If Rogue consents, I will contact Moira immediately. I do not feel that we can handle something like this on our own, my friend."

"Couldn't agree more."

The two men headed over to the encased room and Hank peeked inside with a smile. "Logan is certainly very protective of our southern friend, is he not? I haven't seen him take a liking to a student quite so quickly."

Xavier's brow furrowed. "Indeed he is, I just hope he isn't counting on her for answers."

"Charles?"

The older man only laced his fingers together at Henry's inquiry, and brought the connected fist to his chin.

"If I know Logan at all, which I like to thing that I do, he will take what Rogue says at face value and will run blindly searching for the past he lost." He smiled sadly. "I just wish our friend could forget the restraints of the past and look towards his happiness in the present and the hope for the future."

Silence filled the space in between them momentarily, but soon they proceeded to their desired location.

"He hasn't slept all night."

Hank didn't need much evidence to support this, he could easily see the black half circles beneath Logan's eyes. He was in the exact same spot that the doctor left him the night before.

Hank quickly adjusted his image inducer before typing in the code to open the door. He saw the look his mentor gave him and shrugged in what he hoped was a careless fashion.

"Ms. Fury has not seen anything other than this form," he explained. "And I do not feel that startling her in the delicate state she's in would be wise."

He could tell that the professor wanted to discuss this matter further, but just then Wolverine was in front of them with a tired smile.

"Chuck. Fur ball." He jutted his thumb out behind him. "She still ain't woke up yet, but from what I can tell she's having some pretty messed up dreams."

Xavier smiled. "Thank you for your dedication, Logan. You must be exhausted." He wheeled further into the room and rested his hand above his newest pupils forehead. "Why don't you get some rest, my friend," he said with his eyes still closed, "I'll need you quite refreshed for the conference tomorrow."

There was no mistaking the immediate challenge in Logan's tone. "_What_? You can't be serious, Chuck!"

"Of course I am." He lifted his hand away from Rogue's forehead and gave Henry a small smile. "Would you mind excusing us, Henry? Logan and I have some things to discuss."

"Certainly." He left the room.

Logan barely waited until the doors were fully closed before starting right in. "That's _nuts_! Now ain't the time to be worryin' about some conference that won't change a damn thing!"

"Now, Logan," he soothed, "We've had this planned for months. This conference may not set things into motion just yet, but it is a chance to hear the thoughts of our counterparts and to have ours heard. This could be the beginning of an understanding between humans and mutants. They're scared of us, Logan. They know we exist yet have heard nothing from us. If we simply answer some of their questions—"

"I get that!" The redness of his neck was steadily creeping into his rugged face. "But why do you need me?" His gaze inevitably went to the small girl in the bed. "Shouldn't someone stay here with the kids?"

Xavier examined him serenely. "You know I have complete trust in Jean, Kitty, Scott, and Joseph. This conference is only two days long; they've held down the fort longer than that, as you already know."

Anger that was apparent enough to see sparked from the Canadian. But the professor, who'd seen Logan in his more feral times, did not back down or blink. He'd made his decision and would stand by it.

And Logan knew this. He could scream, go on a rampage, threaten to leave the team; but none of that would move the immobile. He would have to take his violence out on the androids in the Danger Room.

"Fine," he bit out, "but who're you expectin' to take care of her? The kids are scared shitless."

...

"..._run my tongue from y' ears to y' toes. Stop on de way to nibble on y' neck—"_

She knew she heard the entire conversation, but only began understanding what was being said when her eyes began to flutter and her mind became more aware. The medication she was taking for the unbearable migraines (the wounds on her knuckles had long since healed) was lovely in a way: she didn't dream those horrible, confusing dreams; couldn't cry because she was never awake long enough.

But at the same time she felt a constant grogginess and confusion she didn't like at all.

"..._an' y' know dat whipped cream y' keep in de fridge? I'm gonna—"_

Like now for instance. She was trying desperately to remember what Logan and Xavier had woken her up to say, but all that came were flashes of their faces and bits of sentences. It was important, she knew that, yet she couldn't bring her drugged mind to remember, darn it.

"_I bet y' will, y' naughty, naughty t'ing. Y' know what naughty _filles _get? Dat's right p'tite: spankin's."_

Her mind whirred to life after a particularly dirty line and she sat up in the bed, finally alert enough to wake fully. Whatever that conversation was about had obviously made Wolverine angry, she remembered that much.

Yawning and preparing her body for the effort of sneaking herself back to her room, Rogue kicked her legs over the side of the bed and came face-to-face with none other than Gambit.

He stopped in mid-sentence. Blinked once, twice. "I'll have to call y' back, p'tite." He slipped the phone in a pocket and grinned at her.

He remained completely casual, and was even demented enough to look happy to see that she was awake—as if he hadn't just been having phone sex with his girlfriend right beside her sick bed.

"Gambit." She could feel her left eye beginning to twitch and her palms sweat.

"_Chére._"

She exploded beneath his calm demeanor. "What the _hell _are ya doin' here? Ah'm _sick, _swamp rat! This is an _infirmary _in case ya hadn't noticed! Ya can't just sit in here like ya own the place and phone-screw ya girlfriend!"

He waved what she said away. "Wasn't even my girlfriend."

Her mouth popped open for lack of a better reaction, and she stared in shock at the Cajun's nonchalance over his shameful actions. It was like he knew not what things like 'embarrassment' or 'decency' meant. More importantly though, he still hadn't explained his presence in the infirmary.

"So," he threw his booted feet onto the pristine sheets and rested his shaggy head on the wall behind him. "how y' feelin'?"

She noticed that his eyes had traveled to her shoulder—where, during her rant, the too-big hospital gown had slipped down to reveal more smooth skin than she would _ever _want the likes of Remy LeBeau to see.

"What," she yanked up the gown, "are ya doin' here?"

She could feel her face reddening, and she hated that she was always the one left red-faced, tongue-tied, and unsettled after each of their encounters. He was the one who'd been caught in such a humiliating situation, he was the one with all the explaining to do, yet here she was feeling awkward and flustered.

"I am here, _ma chérie,_ to watch over y'." He stood then and motioned for her to do the same.

Her arms went across her chest snottily. "Oh no. Ah'm not goin' anywhere with ya!" Inside her heart was pounding.

It sounded stupid even to her own ears, but Logan had promised to be there when she woke and she'd clung desperately to his promise. She was a Daddy's-girl through and through; though her father could never be replaced it still felt nice to know she was protected, and Logan with his shielding ways was just the person she needed.

For some reason she couldn't yet comprehend she felt as if she'd known the gruff man for much longer than a couple months. She trusted him unquestioningly and wanted _him _here to watch over her, not a dirty two-timing piece of gumbo trash that couldn't care less about her well being.

He seemed annoyed, yet expectant at her response. "Den y' don' wanna go to y' room an' shower? Don' know 'bout y', _mais _whenever I'm in here all I can t'ink about is gettin' out."

Foot in mouth. "Oh. Well..."

He was doing it again, being all sweet out of no where and making it so she didn't know _what _to think of him: was he a bad boy with a soft heart? Or just plain bad?

"Ah'm sorry," she murmured around her confusion. "Ah'm just tired."

She slid the rest of the way off of the bed and had to cling to the thin metal rail to keep from falling. She faced Remy, who had moved to keep her upright, and dared him with a glare to try and help her in any way.

He respected that—just a little. He returned his hands to his pockets with a smirk and stood by while she forced air into her lungs and visibly prepared herself for movement. The slight trembling of her knees made her no less strong in his opinion.

Slowly they moved through the mansion. She stared at the back of his head most of the trip, thinking of the exhaustion in her very bones and the small pocket of hurt ballooning in her chest.

"So Logan just...left?"

He turned back to smirk at her, completely seeing through the careless way she was behaving. "He had no choice. He had to accompany Xavier to Washington. De trips been planned for nearly a year."

"Oh." Her gaze turned downcast.

" 'Sides," he came face-to-face with her and opened the door to her bedroom with a flourish. "Y' got me, remember?"

She couldn't quite bite back her smile in time, and Remy purposefully blocked her escape with his arm. He reveled in her grin and even sported one of his own.

"Maybe de ice princess not so icy, _hein_?"

Instead of letting him get a rise out of her like she knew he so enjoyed doing, the belle remained just as playful as he and even batted her lashes just a bit. "Promise ya won't tell anybody?"

She ducked under his arm and winked, closing the door and resting her back against it before he could come up with a reply. Her heart was pounding harshly in her ears from excitement and disbelief. Had she been _flirting_? With Remy LeBeau of all people?

Yep. She definitely needed to stop taking those pills—no matter how froth-y they made her feel.

...

Breakfast the next morning was probably the most tense she'd ever suffered through in all fifteen years of her life. Worse than the morning after prom even, when she'd had the hangover from hell and Mama had made her force down every morsel of food she prepared as a sort of round-a-bout punishment for Rogue's actions the night prior.

She could literally see awkward sparks sizzling between she and the other members at the table. The younger kids stared and whispered, Scott avoided her at all costs, Joseph was babbling, Kitty was too sweet, and Jean made a point of spearing her eggs extra violently whenever she looked Rogue's way.

Remy...well. Remy was just Remy.

He alone seemed pleasant and unaffected by the less-than-comfortable atmosphere surrounding him. Clanking his silverware loudly, the Cajun made one-sided conversation with whoever would listen, he didn't seem to mind whether actual participation was put forth or not.

"You're barely touchin' y' food," he said around a moutful of self-made omelette and French toast. "aren't y' hungry?"

Rogue glanced down gloomily at her own sorry excuse for a breakfast—soggy Cheerios in warm milk—and let out a sigh. She was going to try and guilt Remy into making her something just as delicious as what was on his plate when Jean finally ended her silence.

"You must not be feeling completely well yet." She took a dainty sip of her orange juice and let her turquoise eyes convery her true feelings. "Maybe you should go back to the Medlab until you're one hundred percent again."

Kitty and Joseph's forced chatter ended then, leaving only the sound of Remy's chewing to fill up the sudden, even more oppressing silence.

"Ah feel fine," was all she could muster. In no way was she fooled by Jean's sugary-sweet 'concern.'

"Come on, p'tite." He shoveled the rest of his food in his mouth and stood. "Nice day outside for a Yankee state, _non_? Let's say you an' I hit de town, get y' some fresh air."

She went red, not knowing if it was due to her recent ordeal or Remy's careless invitation.

He followed her through the swinging door and into the kitchen, and she was silently fuming the whole way. He was just so confident and...and _sure _that she had nothing better to do than to dip out of the mansion, hop on that purring bike of his that she'd heard at all times of night from the window, wrap her arms around that waist of his, let her hair blow in the warm breeze...

And to pretend to be normal—just for a little while longer. She knew that normalcy would be coming to an end soon: bones didn't pop from knuckles and voices didn't whisper in minds for no reason—and that life was changing around her; she needed to hold on to The Now.

She knew all of this and yet still remained numb to it. Her mind couldn't yet grasp the thought of being part of the race she'd pitied so much over the years. She didn't hate mutants, but she certainly didn't want to be one—who did these days? And from what she'd endured so far, she could already tell that her condition (she still couldn't label it as her 'mutation') wasn't at all useful and wonderful like Mama's.

And the world could end tomorrow. Her hair could fall out. She could begin wrinkling prematurely.

And she got angry. Livid. An animalistic fury like none she'd ever experienced formed in her stomach and boiled and brewed until her entire self felt scorched by the heat of it all.

"Ah'd like that."

She was done thinking.

* * *

That took FOREVER. Literally. I don't think I've ever made you all wait THAT long...

Thank you to all who still read and review. Believe it or not: YOU people are my motivation. Especially **Ruroca**(Darling your sweet and supportive e-mails brighten my day. It's wonderful to know someone can care so much) and **Scribblemyname**(I love you, ma'am, as you surely know by now. You're my inspiration and friend).

The ending of this chapter didn't come together quite as nicely as I would have liked, but alas. Expect things to take a sudden and unexpectant turn next chapter.

Review Please :]


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